A war metaphor does not make for an entertaining parallel or backdrop to Valentine’s Day – if there’s anything to be gained from Black-ish‘s first episode in a month, it’s that. Unfortunately, that ugliness is put front and center in the episode’s opening seconds; and what it sets the table for is a thoroughly unpleasant, disheartening half hour of television that is willing to paint its parents as toxic human beings – and turns Diane into a human without empathy, making the night’s B-story as awful as its A story.
The central plot is really a doozy of awfulness. Dre’s over-excitement once again brings his family into conflict, this time around Valentime’s Day (as he calls it) and the fights it brings out between him and Rainbow. Now, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with this premise, but Black-ish goes too far when it tries to mine comedy out of its conflict; turning it into a war metaphor is about the most unfunny thing the show could do. Not only does it require characters to become caricatures, but it does so in the ugliest fashion imaginable; war is a battle that takes place between two people who don’t like each other, usually when one tries to dominate or rule over the other; and “Big Night, Big Fight” is so ignorant to this simple truth, that is plays out war on-screen in the end until it decides that no, it’s just a petty argument.
Yet that declaration of war at the beginning suggested something more from the story; something that would reinforce the bonds of marriage between Dre and Bow… “Big Night, Big Fight” does not deliver that. Instead, it goes for this hokey resolution where the two realize they’ve been jerks all night, and how they could’ve been different. Instead, that ideal evening again turns the two into a toxic couple; no matter how they approached the evening, “Big Night” suggests it would’ve gone wrong, because of all the festering arguments waiting to happen at any time.
Does that sound like something a happy couple would say? It sounds like something more likely to come out of the mouth of Pops or Ruby, two people who prove time and time again that they hate each other. Again, Black-ish plays blind to any of this, instead telling the audience that if Dre had just complimented his wife’s booty, everything would’ve gone smooth for the evening (or at least until Bow ruined it in the bedroom later, of course). This is not funny or cathartic; this is just an ugly episode of television that is willing to paint its central relationship as highly toxic for the sake of laughs, a morbid sense of absurdity that only brings Dre and Bow further apart as characters – at least in theory. In practice, Black-ish still thought “Big Night” needed a happy ending, something it didn’t deserve – and to add insult to injury, acts as kind of a band-aid solution to stitches problem (to quote an elderly family member of mine). It doesn’t address the underlying ugliness it presented the audience, which was a couple willing to undermine each other for the sake of …. what, self-righteousness? An attempt to rein in the husband they’ve dealt with for nearly two decades, but still can’t communicate with?
Throw in a plot where sweet little Diane becomes the meanest person in town (for literally no reason), and what you’ve got is one thoroughly unlikable half hour of TV, an episode whose script is so dissonant from what it portrays on screen, it acts like a case of emotional whiplash – or more accurately, like some twisted comedic version of Stockholm’s Syndrome, where the two bitter main characters come to terms with each other because there’s really no other option; they’re stuck with each other, so why not have a little sleep together on Valentine’s Day, because that’s the only way a fight really ends, right? No thanks, Black-ish; the last thing I want to see on America’s most disingenuous holiday (next to Christmas, of course) are two characters being dishonest with each other – and that’s all “Big Night” really is, two people who refuse to communicate, then make-up at the end because that’s just what couples do.
[Photo via ABC]
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