'The Vince Staples Show' feels like an appetizer that only scratches the surface

• "The Vince Staples Show" is a semi-autobiographical series featuring the rapper navigating life in Long Beach.
• Despite being the titular character, Staples is not the center of attention.

"This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to actual events are purely coincidental."

"The Vince Staples Show" opens with this disclaimer. The semi-autobiographical show stars Vince Staples as a somewhat famous, somewhat rich rapper as he navigates his hometown of Long Beach, California, through a nonsequitur of random events.

Aside from the bemused lead, there's little connective tissue between the five episodes, but that doesn't mean the show doesn't work. Stay with me.

In the opener, "Pink House," the rapper is arrested in connection to speeding. Since his mother has no interest in bailing him out, Staples is left to navigate life and fame behind bars, like when a cellmate recognizes him (and performs a lamentable interpolation of "I Believe I Can Fly"). One of the officers reveals himself as a fanboy and raps to "Norf Norf'' from his debut, "Summertime '06."

Staples has the unique vantage point that comes with a cult following, and further exploration of this elastic type of fame would be intriguing. Similar to his real life, there are scenes in which he's a bold-faced name, while in others, he goes by embarrassingly unrecognized.

"Who the fuck is Vince Staples?" asks an employee at a counterfeit Disneyland-type amusement park in episode four, titled "Red Door."

It's the question that this too-short of a series is desperate for us to answer.

Each episode lacks enough time to give viewers what they really want

Staples isn't the center of attention despite this being an eponymous show. (The rapper also serves as executive producer alongside several others, including "black-ish" creator Kenya Barris and Ian Edelman of "How to Make It in America.")

His character has minimal dialogue, and we regrettably only scratch the surface of who he is and what motivates him— forcing viewers to fill in any existing knowledge of him.

Staples told "GQ" that he intentionally wanted each episode to be pared down and stand-alone. "So we wanted to make sure every episode felt like a ride, and to utilize singular storytelling, really strip back the narrative vision and create something that lived on its own, and didn't have too much serialization or inactivity between episodes," he told the magazine.

That austerity comes at the expense of real plot and character development.

The show is more an extension of a music video or YouTube skit—stylistically, it takes some cues from his 2022 album, "Ramona Park Broke My Heart" —and each episode is brief, a mere morse, at around 20 minutes that leaves you craving more.

The weird and over-the-top comedic set-ups (hunting down fried chicken at an amusement park while fending off a creepy mascot, serendipitously joining a bank heist, a cat-and-mouse chase around Long Beach) overshadow the rapper, as does the supporting cast. The actors playing his girlfriend, Deja (Andrea Ellsworth), and mother, Anita (veteran Vanessa Bell Calloway), are particularly dynamic and more interesting to watch.

Even Rick Ross, who makes a split-second cameo in the standout episode "Black Business," steals the scene with his braggadocious stage persona while shamelessly promoting his brand of Champagne and lemon pepper wings.

Without any particular mission or character journey, seeing more of Staples, the rapper, in the show would be interesting. There are minor nods to his day job, such as the revelation that he received $500,000 advances for each of his albums (which is impressive), but the thread is abandoned without further insight or commentary.

Staples shines when it appears he's being himself

Staples, and thus the show, captivates when he leans into the seemingly innate dry, deadpan humor that fans have seen on display in his interviews, social media, and run on "Abbott Elementary."

In episode 2, "Black Business," where Staples is caught inside a local bank during a heist—while seeking a small business loan to launch a low-sugar cereal for reasons that could be further fleshed out—he recognizes the robbers as his friends.

The caper turns into a social commentary on race and socioeconomic privilege—beyond the reach of hip-hop celebrity— and concludes inside an empty vault with the realization that the bank has already been robbed. "You do a heist, you're George Clooney. You rob a bank, you're Queen Latifah," says Staples, delivering the kicker.

"The Vince Staples Show" is a limited-run five-episode series that may very well be a teaser to gauge response before Netflix commits to more episodes. The rapper has asked fans to "peer pressure" the network into a second season, hopefully allowing him to go deeper and give us more.