The Purge TV Series on USA Network Tuesdays, 10 p.m./9C
By Elia Esparza
When most of us were introduced to Gabriel Chavarria as the lead role in the Emmy® nominated series East Los High, we knew the show had a hit with such a handsome, manly man young guy with a gentle and compassionate heart– every high school girl’s dreamboat.
Gabriel Chavarria at COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: SAN DIEGO (Photo by: Evans Vestal Ward/USA Network)
Well, Chavarria graduated from high school a while back and is now the lead in the USA Network and Syfy’s eagerly awaited television series The Purge, based on the worldwide phenomenon film franchise, he is now Miguel, a U.S. Marine with a hard edge and noble mission. After receiving a cryptic letter from his little sister, Penelope (Jessica Garza), he returns to town on Purge Night prepared to face the senseless violence in the streets alone in order to protect what he loves the most– his family.
The Purge is based on the hit movie franchise from Blumhouse Productions and revolves around a 12-hour period when all crime, including murder, is legal. Set in an altered America ruled by a totalitarian political party, the series follows several seemingly unrelated characters living in a small city. As the clock winds down, each character is forced to reckon with their past as they discover how far they will go to survive the night.
Written and executive produced by film franchise creator, James DeMonaco and led by Jason Blum. Additionally, The Purge‘s entire team behind the blockbuster franchise ?are on board to executive produce: Michael Bay with Brad Fuller and Andrew Form under the Platinum Dunes banner and Sebastien K. Lemercier. Thomas Kelly serves as executive producer/showrunner of the series. Emmy® and Golden Globe® award-winner Anthony Hemingway directed and executive produced the premiere episode. DeMonaco oversees the series which will be an entirely new chapter in America’s 12 hours of annual lawlessness and is slated to launch in conjunction with the next installment in the movie franchise, The First Purge, which is in theaters now.
Aside from East Los High, Chavarria has appeared in the feature films War for The Planet of The Apes, Lowriders, and Freedom Writers. Additional television credits include Aquarius and Southland. Chavarria is represented by Paradigm, Momentum Talent & Literary Agency and Hansen Jacobson.
Portraying Miguel’s sister Penelope is Jessica Garza, who belongs to a Purge-worshipping cult. Having pledged herself to be sacrificed at the behest of their charismatic leader, Penelope’s faith is tested when she is exposed to the ghastly realities of the Purge.
Jessica Garza as Penelope — (Photo by: Patti Perret/USA Network)
Garza is best known for her role as Anabel Ortiz on the series Six. Past television credits include Modern Family, Pure Genius, NCIS and Sweet / Vicious. Garza is represented by Principato-Young Entertainment, Concept Talent Group, and Jackoway, Tyerman, Wertheimer, Austen, Mandelbaum, Morris and Klein.
Variety’s review of the TV series says the series like the movies, epic an America in which criminal impulses are expiated during twelve hours during which all crime is legal… This limited series follows various players in an annual Purge… where death cult members wait in a parked bus, happily allow themselves to be murdered. However, they also state:
If there’s one story we’re meant to follow most closely, it’s probably that of Miguel (Gabriel Chavarria), a Marine searching for his sister (Jessica Garza). She’s checked herself out of rehab and joined up with the show’s cult, heading towards her oblivion. We see other cult members, in sequences that derive their power from their willingness to embrace schlock, stepping off the bus and being brutally hacked to pieces; the camera cuts away before viscera are exposed, but it’s horrific all the same. To save her from this fate, Miguel runs through a violent gauntlet in which he, too, must take lives. It’s a web in which the problem of violent death can only be solved through the solution of violent death, a closed-ended system with just enough imagination to keep us hanging on but not enough to truly surprise us.
It’s in this last story thread that “The Purge,” having been given a TV season’s worth of time to spread out, makes its most effective grasp for the viewer’s sympathy; It’s where the show attempts to make its sharpest points. The upper-class of this fictional America are vociferously in favor of the Purge, because of its tendency to enforce the existing social order, its effect of eliminating members of the underclass, and what the creepy rich seem to see as the pure fun of murder. It’s a point the show makes with suitable horror-movie unsubtlety.
Gabriel Chavarria and Jenny Garza are convincing in this drama-horror chaos-fantasy of a TV series. who like the movie The First Purge, currently in theaters, exist in the era of President Donald J. Trump, and that makes both the TV series and movie more political and like one critique states, “oddly relevant.”
The Purge Drama: USA. (10 episodes, three reviewed.) Premieres Tues., Sept. 4. Cast: Gabriel Chavarria, Hannah Anderson, Colin Woodell, Amanda Warren, Jessica Garza, Lili Simmons, Lee Tergesen, William Baldwin, Dominic Fumusa, Fiona Dourif. Executive Producers: James DeMonaco, Jason Blum, Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Sebastien K. Lemercier, Thomas Kelly, Anthony Hemingway.
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