Throughout its short-lived three seasons, the half-hour comedic melodrama “Vida” has covered a lot of ground.
Opening with a mother’s death bringing together two sisters when they inherit a bar in their gentrifying East L.A.
neighborhood, the series charted Mexican-American identity, immigration, gentrification, queerness, and female sexuality, and concludes with the creation of the hottest Poc queer bar in Boyle Heights.From its humble beginnings as a six-episode lark for Starz, the mere existence of “Vida” was a fairy tale come true.
The show is the brain-and-love-child of Tanya Saracho, a queer Chicana playwright from Chicago who has worked extensively with the city’s famed Steppenwolf Theater Company.
When “Vida” premiered in 2018, there were very few TV shows headed by a woman showrunner, and even fewer by a woman of color.
The joy and enthusiasm evoked by such a milestone carried through the terrific first two seasons, which charmed with sharp storytelling,
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