East Side focuses mainly on a fellow whose business is bribing and pressuring non-Jewish Jerusalem landowners to sell their real estate to Jews. (Why does it never occur to Israel to export movies that portray the country favorably?) He has a daughter on the spectrum, played by an actress on the spectrum, and the problem with such stories is almost always that the screenwriter doesn't acknowledge how continually the disorder would, in reality, get in the way of the plot. In this case, the divergence from reality is less extreme than usual. You never known when the father's workday is going to be interrupted.
There are a fair number of characters and subplots to keep straight, but for the most part they don't get confusing. (I did have trouble remembering the difference between the nice-looking young man with a small apartment to sell and the nice-looking young monk interested in running away with a girlfriend.) In an unexpected but elegant swing away from the main plot, an entire episode takes place outside the Middle East just to intensify the motivation of one of the supporting characters. Or to get the production a subsidy from another government? I have no idea, but by widening the canvas, the episode makes a good contribution.
It seems to be de rigueur for a miniseries like this to leave a thread dangling in hopes of a second season. East Side does a good job of that; it wraps up enough to show there's no insufficiency in the authorial vision, but is doesn't lock the door behind itself.
