There have been a few shows of late that have featured neurodivergent main characters, whether the characters are teens or adults. But what we haven’t seen is a show about how the parents of neurodivergent children balance getting their kids the support they need while balancing their lives and careers. A new Polish series concentrates on that aspect, adding in the wrinkle that the parent of the neurodivergent child has a very unusual career.
Opening Shot: A 7-year-old FaceTimes with his mother. When we flash to her, she has bandages and bruises on her face, and has a tooth missing.
The Gist: The mother, Kamila Barska (Masza Wągrocka), looks like she got into a fight, and she did: She’s a well-known MMA fighter, and she’s just coming off a match that she won — but not without the usual damage. Her son, Jaś (Jan Lubas), wants to know what happened to her tooth; she says it’ll get fixed.
As she heads back into the city from where her match was located, she gets a call from Jaś’ school; apparently, he hit a girl there, and he’s being expelled. When Kama takes Jaś to a psychologist, she is spotted by an MMA fan who’s there with his daughter; he takes a selfie with her and then asks her, “So… is something wrong with your kid, too?”
The psychologist tells Kama that Jaś is autistic, something that Kama has a hard time believing. But the doctor sees many of the signs, including aggression, sensitivity to noise and lack of coordination. She recommends a special-needs school called Wonderful Harbor.
Kama doesn’t have much of a choice, so they go there while she searches for another school. On Jaś’ first day at Wonderful Harbor, he makes a friend in Tola (Tola Będzikowska), a girl with Down syndrome. Tola’s mother, Ula (Barbara Wypych), is dismayed that a boy was placed after Tola’s previous locker-mate, a girl, left. For her part, Kama wonders if this school, where it seems that her son is one of the few “normal” (her word) students and dismisses at 1 PM, is rigorous enough for him.
Ula warms up to Kama and Jaś, though, when she realizes that Kama has tens of thousands of more social media followers than the account she’s created for Tola has.
Kama not only struggles with the diagnosis, but also with trying to get people to watch Jaś while she trains for her next big fight. She finds a school that will enroll him, but she finds that Jaś likes Wonderful Harbor. She also meets another parent, Tatiana (Magdalena Różczka), whom at first she thought was just rudely parking her van to block parents from getting to the curb. But she finds out that Tatiana transports her wheelchair-bound son in the van, and waits all day for him, in case the teachers need her help when he goes to the bathroom.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Mothers Of Penguins reminds us of Atypical and Dinosaur.
Our Take: Written by Klara Kochańska, Dorota Trzaska and Nina Lewandowska, The Mothers Of Penguins is an example of a show that’s not what you may think it is by the description, but in reality it’s much better than you expect. When we read the description of the series and saw that Kama was an MMA fighter, we thought the show would be more sports-oriented. Fortunately, it isn’t. Fighting just happens to be Kama’s profession, one that comes with intense time commitments and travel. The real story is Kama not only wrapping her mind around the idea that her son is autistic, but how she’ll fit caring for that into a schedule that isn’t 9-5.
One thing we noticed is that the language around Jaś being on the spectrum feels like language that faded from the American lexicon about a decade ago, as more Americans were made aware of autism spectrum disorder and what it entails. It was a bit surprising to hear — in 2024 — a child with autism be described as “weird” or having something “wrong” with him or her. There seems to be a lot of hand-wringing over whether the second-grade class — “The Penguins”, which is where the title comes from — has enough “normal” students in it.
It’s a stark illustration that neurodivergence is still a subject that people in certain parts of the world struggle to understand, and that sometimes the language around something that you’re used to using where you live hasn’t reached all over the world. It’s also an interesting illustration of how much our understanding of neurodivergence has evolved in such a short period of time, and the show’s writers are giving all indications that the understanding of it is evolving in Poland, albeit not at the same pace it is elsewhere.
It’s a sweet story, one that will show how Kama changes in order to make sure that Jaś has everything he needs to succeed academically and socially, especially as she meets other parents going through something similar to her. Among those parents are Ula, Tatiana, and Jerzy (Tomasz Tyndyk), a single dad bringing up a daughter on the spectrum. They all have different challenges, but we’re looking forward to scenes where they lean on each other for support.
Sex and Skin: Nothing.
Parting Shot: Ula takes it upon herself to post a picture of Kama and Jaś with her and Tola, and mentions that Jaś is on the autism spectrum, something Kama never revealed to the public. “Stupid bitch!” screams Kama, a phrase that Jaś has learned to repeat over and over when he gets overstimulated.
Sleeper Star: Barbara Wypych does a good job playing Ula as the overprotective mom that’s generally a nightmare to school administrations and other parents, but it does seem like she has a good heart, and Wypych manages to show both aspects.
Most Pilot-y Line: See above about the language around neurodivergence. Believe us, we know how hurtful those words can be for the neurodivergent people in our lives, and we hope that’s something that the people in Poland can evolve past.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Mothers Of Penguins is a sweet story about a woman with an unusual career trying to care for the most important person in her life, with a good performance by Wągrocka as Kama.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.