Common Sense Media Review
By Melissa Camacho
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Latino-led drama has drinking, violence, deviousness.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
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Promised Land (2022)
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
The drama PROMISED LAND features two Latino families vying for control over a Northern California winery. Joe Sandoval (John Ortiz) owns the (fictitious) Sonoma, California vineyard known as Heritage House, one of the biggest wine producers in the United States. The demanding family patriarch is thinking about retiring and passing the company down to the next generation of the family. His oldest daughter, Veronica (Christina Ochoa), wants to be CEO; his son Antonio (Tonatiuh Elizarraraz), with whom he has a strained relationship, has a vested interest in the business; and his little sister Camila (Mariel Molino) is hoping to tap into the 20-something wine market. But their mother, Margaret Honeycroft (Bellamy Young), a successful hotelier, wants to push her ex-husband out of the business. Meanwhile, Mateo (Augusto Aguilera), the biological son of Joe's current wife Lettie (Cecilia Suárez), wants to go from being the company's general manager to being a vintner, while high schooler Junior (Miguel Angel García), the son they have together, is getting into trouble more than he is getting involved. While each of the adult kids is trying to carve a path toward the company's future, sisters Juana (Katya Martin) and Rosa Sánchez (Ariana Guerra) have illegally crossed the Mexican border into California with a young man named Carlos Rincón (Rolando Chusan), whose brother works at Heritage House, and who can get them papers and jobs.
Is It Any Good?
The soap opera-like series offers lots of drama and scandal as the Sandovals negotiate the future of their family's winery. Part of the series feels like a Northern California version of Dallas, thanks to the intersecting narratives revolving around family strife, and the wealthy and influential people trying to take advantage of it. The ensemble cast of good-looking characters, each of whom are keeping potentially earth-shattering secrets from each other, only add to this. Throughout it all, Promised Land purposely highlights things like the importance of family, being bilingual, and generational assimilation in order to tell the story from a decidedly Latino point of view. But the plot lines focusing on illegal immigration and being undocumented (two things that the family patriarch is adamantly against) lean heavily into common, stereotypical media characterizations that undermine the show's attempts to legitimize the presence of an established and powerful Latino family in the United States. The result is a series that is trying to be inclusive, but the way it's going about it can be as uncomfortable as it is indulgent.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the wine industry. What makes it so competitive? How many wineries in the United States are owned by members of underrepesented or marginalized communities?
Promised Land features powerful and wealthy Latino families, and Latino people who are from more humble circumstances. Are they being represented fairly or accurately? If not, how can they be portrayed without relying on stereotypes?
TV Details
- Premiere date : January 24, 2022
- Cast : John Ortiz , Christina Ochoa , Bellamy Young
- Network : ABC
- Genre : Drama
- TV rating :
- Last updated : January 26, 2022
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