Thursday, October 6, 2016

Go 'black-ish': Season 3 Review

Considering how reinventing the black sitcom was at the core of the justifiably Emmy nominated black-ish,  it is amazing how good this series is at being hysterical funny and emotionally powerful, often at the same time. One of the most powerful moments of last season came in an episode titled simply 'Hope', essentially a play as the Johnson's dealt with the all-too familiar scene of an African-American shooting, and the ramifications within their family. Watching Anthony Anderson deliver a heartfelt monologue of the fear that probably was in far too many of our hearts after Obama was elected was one of the more emotional moments in a season on TV that has dealt effectively with race.
Now that Season 3 has begun, it would seem the only place black-ish could go is down. And it certainly didn't get off to a great start when the season premiere was basically a corporate salute to Disney, the parent corporation of ABC. It was the kind of phoniness that this series has gone out of its way to avoid, and it may have been the weakest episode the series aired so far. Fortunately, it recovered very quickly. Last week's episode dealt very effectively with the issue of God in the black community, when older sister Zoe announced to her family she was becoming an atheist, something that very quickly drover Dre up the wall, something made even more infuriating by the arrival of Bow's brother (Tony winner Daveed Diggs) making mincemeat of the argument of God. The series had a fairly strong episode about the reality of religion in any community, and ended with a surprisingly poignant moment involving Bow's pregnancy..
This week's episode also involved the fairly solid subject of how Dre - and by extension, the black community - is dealing with Obama about to leave office, how blacks feel about voting, and of course, the current election. It would be easy enough to see the satire as Dre tried rather frantically to get his underachieving son to be elected high-school president, with some of the more obvious tricks in how black people feel about winning election. But the episode took a fairly long view when it came to everything that was going on in how the African-American community views voting to begin with. Dre's mother, for example, took the perspective that she didn't need to know who the candidates were, she was voting for the Democrat. Then the youngest child went through an app which checked a persons position, and saw who they'd vote for, and given Mrs. Johnson's positions on 'celebrating the death penalty', her shock that there isn't a wall keeping Mexicans out, and racial profiling, she learned that not only was she a Trump supporter, she might actually 'be Trump.' Equally funny was a debate between Pops (Laurence Fishburne) Bow's brother, and Miles about how the system is rigged to keep African-Americans from voting, and that there is no point in government. Then they saw Michelle Obama's speech at the DNC, and were galvanized into action, Add to this, the hysterically funny way the eldest daughter is trying to worry about getting into college, and it's fair to say that the series is back on track.
Admittedly, the series still isn't perfect. They still haven't managed to make Dre's job nearly as interesting as what's going on at home, but the sequences with Charlie are totally worth it. However, its beginning to look like this may be one of the more brilliant comedy series the network has developed. Whether it will still be as good when co-creator Kenya Barris exits at the end of Season 3 is hard to say, but its funny and thought provoking simultaneously, and a refreshing antidote to some of the programming running against it.

My score: 4 stars.

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