Summary
The Mothers of Penguins is a heartfelt and frank exploration of family, identity, and unique challenges.
Despite the fact that The Mothers of Penguins centers around a woman who happens to be an MMA fighter, don’t worry – this isn’t just a ladylike version of The Cage. Instead, the Polish Netflix drama, which runs six episodes and comes courtesy of writer-director Klara Kochanska, is a quite intimate family drama about love, expectations, and adaptations when protagonist Kama (Masza Wagrocka) discovers her son, Jas (Jan Lubas), is neurodivergent.
My eldest daughter is autistic, so I must confess to having certain preexisting biases for stories that tackle this subject and frankly address the daily challenges of neurodivergent children and their primary caregivers. It makes me nitpicky about things too, but luckily the forthrightness of this series left little room for complaint.
I know you’re wondering about the title. The penguin comparison is about the uniqueness of penguins and the inherent contradiction of a flightless bird, but how that translates to them being special and talented in their own ways that sometimes take a little more effort to discover. It’s a sweet idea, especially for those of us who have seen our own loved ones steadily grapple with the idea of not being “normal” and instead discover their own unique identities.
Kama presents an interesting avenue for exploring these ideas because she’s in denial, which is common. But more so than that she grew up under a strict disciplinarian father and is an MMA fighter – being tough and getting on with things is ingrained in her on a core level. She sees the world as cruel and treats everything like an athletic competition, which isn’t the kind of support Jas needs. And, ironically given a character at one point highlights that many fathers abandon neurodivergent children and leave the mothers to deal with the challenges, her outlook is oddly and deliberately quite masculine.
Masza Wagrocka in The Mothers of Penguins | Image via Netflix
But Kama isn’t alone – this show is called The Mothers of Penguins, plural, after all. Of particular note is Ula, another mother who Kama meets at Wonderful Harbor, the school for neurodivergent children that Jas transfers to after his diagnosis, much to her chagrin. Ula is a dreaded influencer, an archetype that always irritates me, but she uses her social media presence to document the process of raising her daughter, Tola, who was born with Down syndrome. And Tatiana’s son Michal has muscular dystrophy, which presents its own quite specifically physical challenges. Through both women, Kama begins to realize how she’s failing Jas and learns to adjust to his needs and respect his differences.
The six episodes are split fairly evenly among these three characters, who each offer a slightly different perspective, so the runtime breezes by. And there’s a softness to the plotting that really helps things along. This isn’t a show about sharp twists and swerves, but instead one about highlighting how everyday things – something as innocuous as loud noises, crowds, or a particular video game – can manifest as difficult and overwhelming experiences for neurodivergent people.
Kama’s MMA career unfolds in the background of all this, rightly rendered secondary to the family drama. The fight sequences – limited though they are – had no reason to be this good, so that’s a bonus, especially since it’s reassuring how much more accurately MMA tends to be depicted in popular media these days. We’ve come a long way. Not that it’s really the point in this case, but there you go.
Anyway, this is going to sound weird, but the last thing I want from The Mothers of Penguins is more of it. I want more shows like it, sure, that tell different stories but have the same open, honest approach. But I don’t see any justification to drag this particular story out unnecessarily for the sake of streaming dollars. We should be content with the ending we’re given, predictable and simple though it might ultimately be, since it’s about the destination rather than the journey. I enjoyed that journey a fair bit. But let’s have a new one to experience too.
