FUBAR: Season One

• Created by Nick Santora
• May 25, 2023 to Present
• Netflix

Main Cast

• Luke Brunner-Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Emma Bartholomina Brunner-Monica Barbaro
• Bartholomew Tiberius “Barry” Putt-Milan Carter
• Boro Polonia-Gabriel Luna
• Ruth “Roo” Russell-Fortune Feimster
• Aldon C. Reese-Travis Van Winkle
• Tallulah “Tally” Brunner-Fabiana Udenio
• Carter Perlmutter-Jay Baruchel
• Dot-Barbara Eve Harris
• Tina Mukerji-Aparna Brielle
• Donatello “Donnie” Luna-Andy Buckley

Recurring Cast

• Oscar Brunner-Devon Bostick
• Cain Khan-David Chinchilla
• Sandy-Stephanie Sy
• Romi-Rachel Lynch
• Dr. Louis Pfeffer-Scott Thompson

Guest Stars

• The Great Dane-Adam Pally
• Norm Carlson-Tom Arnold

A retiring CIA operative learns his daughter too is an operative and things become very complicated exposing a rift between them.

FUBAR is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first television series. It’s always a bit of a concern for me when any celebrity not associated with TV takes a television show. Will it be as good as what made them famous? Mercifully FUBAR is rather enjoyable and certainly plays into the screen persona that Schwarzenegger spent over 40 years building up. While not perfect it’s certainly not terrible.

As a show it leans more into action comedy than it does into pure action. And the comedy is often funny. It’s not a joke a minute, but the jokes come steady and are appropriately interspersed with the assorted action elements. One does not step on the other.

When I think about it, something about FUBAR makes me feel it was a reworked premise for a True Lies sequel of some type. Not that the family is aware of his CIA status in this but there are enough elements here I could see this having been reworked from something like that. Or, if not, they should have done exactly that rather than the series they did come up with in connection to True Lies. Anywho…

Here Arnold plays Luke Brunner, a CIA operative on the verge of retirement. He’s a divorced dad and during much of the show holds onto the dream of winning his wife Tally (Fabiana Udenio) back now that he will soon no longer be making excuses for going off on missions. Unfortunately this goes awry when on a last minute mission he learns his daughter Emma (Monica Barbaro) is in the CIA as well that connects to a past mission and it all brings family issues to the surface.

Certain elements of the character of Emma bother me. What gets me is that the character seems more angry about Luke being in the CIA than she does about the divorce. Yes, there is anger and resentment over the divorce, but she’s upset over him keeping secret his CIA involvement yet she’s a CIA agent as well doing pretty much what he did. While not married, she is in a committed relationship with kindergarten teacher Carter Perlmutter (Jay Baruchel) and clearly lies to him on a similar level as Luke did/does.

They do a poor job of highlighting that and often paint Luke as the baddie for doing then what Emma is doing now. Luke often apologizes/tries to make amends for his past while Emma is more upset over what her identical actions are doing rather than try to fix things in a way similar to Luke.

Emma is very focused on dressing down her father for exactly what she is doing now. Luke does very little in the way of pointing that out or defending himself from that. Rather he stands there and takes it which bothers me. How is it bad for him but okay for her?

Often Emma’s actions indicate she really hates her dad. She actively recruited Tally’s current boyfriend Donatello (Andy Buckley) to cockblock her dad whom she knew wanted her mother back. She saw that there was potential there and helped Donnie win Tally’s heart. That takes a special level of hate.

The supporting cast is great and have very sizeable roles. Ahnuld to his credit did not try to be the only character here with any depth or importance. They are all entertaining and more importantly they’re not utterly disposable. I don’t think Schwarzenegger and his onscreen daughter could’ve carried this alone.

I’ve never been too thrilled with Jay Baruchel. I’m not calling him terrible. I can’t say he knocked it out of the park as the suffering boyfriend of Emma, but he did do pretty good. The general persona he seems to get stuck with in the few things of his I’ve seen worked well here. He was able to give it some depth and perhaps a bit nuance. What would normally come off as a loser came off as sympathetic. His character is a genuinely nice guy that loves Emma and she does love him, but she seems to be taking him for granted.

I’m curious how much of what we got on the screen of relationship between Tally and Luke was wish fulfillment on Schwarzenegger’s part all things considered. Just a thought. Schwarzenegger and Udenio make a convincing former/potential couple and considering the relationship’s significance to the overall arc of Luke that was very important.

For the character of Tally I think there were a few missed opportunities where they seem to hint that she was going to find out or at least find information to feed suspicions that she started to develop. Then they just brushed it off the table and moved on. It felt more like the writers had started to realize that they made a mistake because they didn’t know where to go so they decided to get rid of it before it had gone too far.

Gabriel Luna as FUBAR’s villain Boro Polonia was absolutely fantastic. His performance was cold and intelligent. He walked onto the scene and you knew his character meant business. Luna could also make Boro kind of charming, and maybe even a little likable. And as written he was effectively a massive threat to not only Bruner, but to the CIA. He wasn’t disposable and just existing to slow up the story.

The action sequences are very good. And with a combination of humor and their stylization I find them reminiscent of some of the better stuff done during the 80s, which Schwarzenegger was a major part of. And as much as this is an action story, it is also a bit of a workplace comedy. These are all people bonded by the job and the silly work issues play into many elements of the story. The humor of the show is not at the expense of the characters. Think of it at more along lines of putting of accidentally putting your foot in your mouth.

You could be forgiven for forgetting that Luke and Tally have a son named Oscar (Devon Bostick). Why? Because he barely gets mentioned in the whole series. Admittedly not a major character but one that should be a presence in some way and not so disregarded that the audience’s memory lapses. Especially since his Oscar’s daughter Romi (Rachel Lynch) is supposedly very much loved by all when the writers recall she exists.

What drew me to this was the same thing that drew everybody else-Arnold Schwarzenegger. If any other name had been attached to this I certainly would’ve skipped it no matter how good it ultimately may have turned out. Casting is always important and he gives this something extra special.

I have mixed feelings on the finale. The closing moments just don’t feel right to me. It felt forced. Or it could be just they close it with the characters driving away in a van and it is clearly green screen behind/surrounding the van. Darn that green screen! Other than that it was great and action packed. It closed out some elements but in my opinion too overtly left stuff dangling to give building blocks for a second season.

Ultimately FUBAR despite any flaws or personal issues I may have is an entertaining action comedy television series. There’s enough excitement and humor that you enjoy yourself and the characters have some meat to them. It’s as much Schwarzenegger doing what he does best as it is an entertaining show. I definitely recommend this one!