The only scene in Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld that I’m obsessed with

I love a good series about teenagers fighting supernatural beings while enduring the humiliating ordeal of being a high school student. So Netflix Jentry Chau versus the underworldin which not only does a teenage girl with superpowers fight demons, but also Also is based on Chinese mythology and seems to have been created in a laboratory just for me. From the first trailer I had high expectations. With bright, bold colors and character designs, compelling character relationships, and some very crazy monsters and action sequences, it really lived up to all my expectations.

But there’s one particular scene that I can’t stop thinking about because it so perfectly illustrates the tone of this show and explains why it works so well.

(Ed. Note: This post contains spoilers for Jentry Chau versus the underworld.)

Jentry Chau versus the underworld begins when 16-year-old Jentry (Ali Wong) learns that a demon is after her because she has powers she has suppressed for most of her life. She must return to her hometown in Texas with her great-aunt Gugu (Lori Tan Chinn) to close a portal to the underworld and prevent more monsters from wreaking havoc on the world. Meanwhile, she tries to fit in with her new (old?) classmates and slowly learns more about her own past and Gugu’s refusal to reveal more about her parents.

About halfway through the show, Jentry discovers that Kit (Woosung Kim), the new boy at school with big, dreamy eyes, is actually a Painted Skin demon from Chinese mythology. This means that he is actually a long-limbed, shadowy demon who must fashion elaborate disguises out of human skin to hide his true form. This revelation initially hurts Jentry, but she eventually asks him for help in creating a skin shape based on her image for a robbery.

Cue a montage of the two carefully stitching together a Jentry hide in Kit’s dimly lit workshop while a gentle, romantic song plays. Kit cuts a roll of meat to best replicate Jentry’s body, gently tilting her face upward so he can measure her chin. Jentry is slightly disgusted when Kit rummages through a bin full of body parts and asks him to warn her when he chooses the eyes, to which he replies that he already knows which eyes exactly match her eyes because he has imagined them so many times has – and Jentry blushes.

It’s a bit disgusting. It’s incredibly intimate. It’s scary and yet super romantic. It’s charmingly reminiscent of a budding high school romance, and it looks something too The Silence of the Lambs. But it’s emblematic of how showrunner Echo Wu has beautifully embraced the wonderfully strange, both with the paranormal elements and the more grounded elements.

The show relies quite heavily on the more frightening aspects of Chinese mythology, such as a journey to Diyu, the Daoist version of hell where souls have been tortured for eons. The bright colors and cartoonish character designs keep the series firmly in PG territory, but it also gets a little scary in a good way. At one point, for example, the house spirits need to create more ectoplasm, so one of them volunteers to be brutally mutilated – off-screen, but with some screaming – to create just a splash of magical spirit fluid. And even with these darker elements, the tone never gets too dark, and much of the fun comes from the strange situations and paranormal creatures that Jentry and her friends encounter.

And because Wu draws on a cultural myth that American animation has not yet fully explored, none of the supernatural storylines feel over-the-top (do we really need another brooding vampire when we can have a demon with painted skin?). American cartoons have long flirted with Chinese mythology without actually delivering on it. American Dragon: Jake Long And The Life and Times of Juniper LeeTwo animated series that aired in the mid-2000s also featured a young Chinese-American protagonist guided by battle monsters by an older relative—but both series primarily emphasized Western mythology and only incidentally incorporated Chinese legends. Jentry Chau does the opposite: by default, everything Jentry encounters comes from Chinese mythology and mixes in other cultural perspectives without assuming that the default is Western. It’s a unique lens that really makes the show shine and avoids tired clichés.

But despite the fun paranormal side, Wu never loses sight of the series’ more realistic storylines. At the end of the day, Jentry is a young girl who just wants to be normal. Her relationships with her friends, her mysterious great-aunt, and herself may be steeped in the paranormal, but they all feel very rooted in realism. The scene with Kit works so well because even though it’s about a demon making a skin costume, it’s also about teenage crushes and complicated feelings (and the fact that those complicated feelings come from being in reality is a demonic creature). Jentry Chau versus the underworld is certainly not the only supernatural high school romp out there, but Wu takes care to balance the fantastical elements with the real ones.

Still, the show works so well because Wu isn’t afraid to get weird. As a coming-of-age story and supernatural show at the same time, Jentry Chau could easily fall into some cliched genre pitfalls. But Wu doesn’t let that happen, simply leaning into the funkier beats and letting them really sing. It’s in the little details in the background, like Jentry’s Lisa Frank leopard poster and Gugu’s crocodiles. And it’s also seen in the larger scenes, like the romantic moment between Jentry and Kit against the backdrop of sewing a meat suit. Now that is something special – and the whole show is a special, strange gem, sparkling with neon intensity.

Jentry Chau versus the underworld is now available to stream on Netflix.