Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ralph Barbosa: Cowabunga’ On Netflix, A Comedian Who Wants To Keep Things Chill For His Debut Hour

Memorable Jokes: In real life, Barbosa jokes he’s jealous just knowing his girlfriend had boyfriends before him, and that she has a much healthier family supporting her than he does, even if he might not ever want to pray before meals or attend church regularly like they do. Why not? “People at church have like co-worker vibes.” Good point!

In his fantasies, though, Barbosa’s dream girl is an illegal immigrant who’s doubling down by illegally racing street cars. An applause break rewards him for revealing himself as his dream girl’s “passenger prince,” shooting Boomerangs for his Instagram Stories, and he keeps the dream alive by tagging the physical bit with several descriptive flourishes.

Equally great moments in the hour include Barbosa observing that retail therapy works just as well even if you don’t buy anything, because retail workers will cheer you up in their attempt to make the sale; when he allows himself to be a word nerd by pondering by the pond; and when he cops that he doesn’t know how to handle himself in a bar fight unless his cousin shouts video-game instructions to coach him through it: “L1 square square triangle!” earns Barbosa another extended applause break. No wonder he’d just as soon keep Starbursts in his pocket to ward off would-be brawlers.

Our Take: Barbosa wonders at the top of his hour what it means to be cool. Is drinking less cool because it’s good for him? Smoking may look cool, but can he justify it by looking at the potential upsides of the explicit health warnings on the package? Are you only cool if you drink a certain brand of bottled water? He’s worried about some of these things, but only to a point.

When it comes to his politics, Barbosa makes a point to issue a disclaimer that he’s not a Republican, but also not registered anything as he doesn’t vote since he has no political literacy. How could he? Raised by grandparents who barely spoke English, having a teen mom who tried to sugar-coat her boyfriend’s prison sentences for drugs (or his father’s drug-dealing, for that matter) by explaining it instead as if he were an astronaut holding illegal moon rocks. He does have a bit of fun at the expense of New York City, claiming the big city isn’t as cool about guns as Texas is. Not that he would ever use his gun. “Guns are good, bullets are bad,” he says. Turns out Barbosa just wants to fit in, whether that’s officially cool or not.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Barbosa may have taught himself well enough at 13 to run a makeshift barbershop out of his very teen bedroom in his grandparents’ house, and then later cut hair in an actual barbershop, but he’s definitely found his true calling on the other side of the street, so to speak and quite literally in this case.