BLACKISH REVIEW:

Blackish continues its slow phase with another predictable ‘shaky, at best’ BLACK MATH (Season 4, Episode 18)

GRADE: C-

As we all know and respect the show for, it tries to use every episode as a platform to voice its take on real life social and political issues and situations while exposing the viewers to the varied components of African American culture. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its lighter and purely comedic moments.

 

This week, it takes on the issues and perceptions of ‘white’ universities (Stanford University case in point here) and ‘Black’ universities (Howard University Case in point here). Its efforts were…shaky, at best. 

 

It starts with Bo (Tracee Ellis Ross) and Dre (Anthony Anderson) worried about Junior (Marcus Scribner) not getting any replies from the colleges he applied to. Junior then comes in, with two mail packages in hand, berated by Dre (what else is new?) for using ‘snail mail’ instead of e-mail. The first mail is a full scholarship to Howard University which of course Dre is ecstatic about; the second mail is an admission to Stanford University which comes with a not so good financial aid. The decision to Bo and Junior is obvious: Stanford University, because I mean, it’s Stanford, right? This doesn’t go down well with Dre who begins to go on and on about how black universities are not held in high regard as white universities just because white people say so. So of course he ensures that he and an unwilling junior go on a campus trip to HU, maybe he could get this one shot at ‘real blackening’. 

 

Dre and Junior go on a trip to a snowy black utopia that is HU, however ended up meeting a black on black protest and a weirdo nerd culture, in Dre’s perspective, making the trip an apparent disaster.

 

Bo then reminds Dre of how hard it was for him, as a HU graduate, to integrate black into society and how much catching up on white culture he had to do before he could relate with his co-workers. This finally softens Dre towards Stanford, to her delight, however Junior had other plans. Apparently the trip gave him a positive vibe of the university, reminding him of why he should be proud to be black and how he has probably met his future wife (who threatened to punch him in the face if he continued staring). One can only guess how Dre and Bo reacted to this. 

 

The subplot involving Jack (Miles Brown), Diane (Marsai Martin) and Ruby (Jenifer Lewis) were boring; at some points it was downright bad. Diane was right; Jack is not funny (at least in this episode). None of his ‘apparent comedic bits’ worked for me. At least one thing was achieved from this: we got introduced to one of Ruby’s many past lives - as a showbiz manager. 

 

She turns Jack into an Instagram star and despite her best efforts, Diane flops and she gets dumped by Ruby as a client at midnight while wearing her pajamas. Apparently there is Michael Jackson evidence that you’ll be taken seriously as an entertainer if you sleep in show clothes, ready at any time.

 

However, Diane soon creates a new punch line ‘what? I’m just saying’ (which was as flat as a pancake), soon ousting jack as the new comedy supreme. Diane, you aren’t funny either (at least in this episode). We all know you as the dark and twisty one, which is ironically the funny bit about you. Stay in that lane.

 

The episode as a whole was full of predictable plot lines, paucity of laughs and I doubt members of the HU alumni will be happy about their representation in this episode. It seems Blackish is in its slow phase at the moment. Last week’s North Star, centered on Easter with multicultural food recipes was also a bit wobbly and predictable, albeit better than the latest installments. No need to worry. They’ll bounce back. They always do. 

 

SIDE NOTES:

 

• Honorable mention: Junior. If you look at the episode as a Junior-centric episode, it wasn’t half bad. The best scenes were with him in it and it showcases a more mature Junior who makes informed decisions.

 

• Blackish is sending off Junior to college kinda like the way Zoey (Yara Shahidi) was sent off to college in season 3, all the way to a spin off series of her own, Grown-ish. Could there be a Junior-centered spin off in the works? I wonder what it’ll be called…

 

• Earl Johnson (Laurence Fishburne) was sadly missing from this episode. Perhaps he’s in Vegas. He might have given us some laughs

 

 

Blackish airs every Tuesday night on ABC.