Nico is a 26-year-old college graduate with an engineering degree who chooses to live a life of complete passivity. Subsisting on a $75,000 inheritance from his maternal grandfather, he spends his days watching online videos and walking through the city. He utilizes his lack of ambition as a defense mechanism against adult responsibilities and views his mother's progressive ideals with intense cynicism.

Gloria is a 62-year-old liberal activist and the matriarch of the Bonaventura family. She fiercely protects her progressive identity, participating in clothing drives and distributing pizzas to maintain her moral standing in the community. Her decision to open her Ditmas Park home to a migrant is driven by a mix of political conviction, social rivalry with a conservative neighbor, and a desire to annoy her ex-husband.

Martine is an attractive, physically fit Honduran woman in her late twenties who arrives in Brooklyn as a sponsored asylum seeker. She quickly makes herself indispensable to her hosts by scrubbing cabinets and cooking elaborate traditional meals. Her bubbly, helpful persona masks a highly pragmatic survivalist worldview that prioritizes securing a foothold in a new country by any means necessary.

Palermo is Nico's 35-year-old sister who manages the books for her husband's construction company. A former promising gymnast, she lives with chronic spinal pain following a car accident, which contributes to her blunt, no-nonsense demeanor. She publicly supports her mother's political stances but lacks her younger sister's boundless, uncritical compassion.

Vanessa is Nico's 32-year-old sister who runs a children's after-school program in Sunset Park. She is an uncritical optimist who assumes the best of everyone and eagerly embraces her mother's charitable initiatives. Her boundless generosity and desire to see only the good in people blind her to the potential risks in her family's environment.

Domingo is a short, muscular Latino man with tattooed hands who arrives uninvited at the Bonaventura home. Sullen and entitled, he makes no effort to be a polite guest, instead blasting loud Honduran music and treating the family's resources as his own. His aggressive presence introduces a raw, unvarnished tension into the previously quiet household.

Carlin is a prominent right-of-center journalist who runs the online magazine Sanity.com. He represents an older, more assertive model of masculinity and openly criticizes the progressive pieties embraced by his ex-wife. Though estranged from most of his family, he maintains a quiet connection with his son while pushing him to engage more actively with the world.

Alonso is a heavyset, jovial man in his mid-twenties who moves into the house without an invitation. Operating as a trickster figure, he is disarmingly frank about his cynical worldview, openly mocking American systems as weak and easily exploited. He enthusiastically takes advantage of the Bonaventuras' hospitality while giving Nico unsolicited, amoral advice on how to profit from the ongoing crisis.

Byron is Palermo's husband and the owner of a construction company. He is highly practical and generally avoids the intense ideological skirmishes of his in-laws, focusing instead on his business operations and maintaining his distance from the escalating drama at the Ditmas Park house.

Vernon is a longtime family friend of the Bonaventuras who is completing a documentary about the southern border. He holds strong, controversial views on immigration that clash directly with Gloria's progressivism, creating deep social friction during holiday gatherings.

Colleen is Vernon's wife and creative partner. She works with him on their documentary project and engages in debates about how to frame their controversial findings to remain commercially viable while discussing border politics.

Tyler is the adult son of Vernon and Colleen Carmichael. He acts as a peer to Nico, directly challenging his childhood friend about his long-term unemployment and lack of ambition, highlighting the social stigma attached to Nico's chosen lifestyle.

Miguel is one of Domingo's associates who crashes a private event at the Bonaventura house and refuses to leave. He embodies the aggressive, lawless element that gradually assumes control of the household, displaying outright contempt for the original residents and their property.

Tom is a legal professional who manages the Bonaventura family's formal affairs and official documents. He serves as an administrative anchor, processing the legal consequences of the family's decisions.

Kumquat is Vanessa Bonaventura's beloved pet dog. As the tensions in the household escalate and violent men occupy the space, Kumquat becomes an innocent victim of the changing environment.