Lee makes no bones about the fact that, despite interviewing over 200 people, this series is squarely from his perspective to the point that, for instance, his omnipresent red chyrons identify some as citizens of “Da People’s Republic of Brooklyn,” New Yorkers he dislikes as “NOT reppin’” their boroughs, and even Barack Obama as Barack “Da Brudda” Obama. He frequently asks people to repeat a sentence he likes or finds particularly powerful, a request they often fulfill by speaking it with more confidence than they did the first time around. When speaking to the children of Sandra Santos-Vizcaino, the first public school teacher to die of COVID-19 in New York City, Lee first sets them at ease with avuncular teasing about their audacity to be Red Sox fans. It should surprise no one that Lee is an engaged interviewer who audibly encourages his subjects (credited with solemnity as “witnesses”) from just offscreen to be forthright. 22, Lee sets the stage for a series that commemorates a city in both crisis and rebirth by highlighting the expertise of others, not to mention his own place as one of New York’s most enduring personalities. Lee speaks with everyone including nurses, politicians, restaurant owners, first responders and Brooklyn faithful friends such as Jeffrey Wright and Rosie Perez.
The first half of “NYC Epicenters” focuses, more or less, on the COVID-19 pandemic and summer of protests that followed George Floyd’s murder.
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