Admittedly, I was cold on Black-ish when it first aired, and one of the main reasons why was the disconcerting sense of consumerism at the heart of it, whether it was voice overs describing collections of Jordan sneakers, or Rainbow’s main plot in the pilot, which was ensuring that her husband made the most amount of money possible. Since then, the show’s been able to grow into an enjoyable family comedy, one that was learning how to reflect on African-American popular culture without turning itself into a racial caricature (though with characters like Charlie, the show’s still working out the kinks in that balance) – and with this week’s episode, finally able to mine the family’s economic situation for engaging stories and hilarious moments.
It makes “The Gift of Hunger” the strongest wall-to-wall episode of the show since “The Talk” (Dre insisting on taking his shirt off for talks about the birds and bees, confusing his son along the way is still the show’s funniest scene), one that takes a traditional sitcom plot – father realizes his kids aren’t going “through the struggle” like him – and injects it with some of the show’s budding personality, a particular highlight for the children actors on the show, who are able to showcase a wider range of talents then most children even possess, much less are able to put on display multiple times in a 22-minute episode. There’s nothing particularly ‘fresh’ about the episode’s premise, per se: even the added tinge of “black father from the projects indoctrinates his children on life in poverty” doesn’t lead to any particularly unique or eye-opening moments.
Which it’s certainly not required to; in fact, what makes “The Gift of Hunger” work so well is it doesn’t reach to be culturally relevant or posit itself as enlightened on issues of race and economics. It simply takes a story with a lot of comedic possibilities, and lets the performers take care of the rest; as Dre forces each kid in the house to take a job because he thinks they’ve been spoiled, black-ish fragments its narrative to focus on each kid individually (except the youngest pair, who get lumped together in every episode), allowing not only to deepen each of the children’s characters, but allow us to understand Dre’s interactions with his children a bit better. We can see that the family expects more creatively out of Zoey, and that Dre understands he needs to let his bumbling son figure out his own path (even if it’s just getting a coffee order right – baby steps, right?), without confusing or stressing him with extreme expectations or focus.
These little bits combine with the character jokes (Diane telling her brother Jack to “lawyer up” after he disputes his lemonade-based pay structure) to make “The Gift of Hunger” a very well-rounded episode, one that is able to focus on comedy without having to rely too heavily on voice overs explicitly telling the audience how to feel. With a very capable group of adult and child performers at their disposal, it feels like the writers of black-ish are starting to get the hang of each actor’s talents in “The Gift of Hunger”, playing up things like Tracee Ellis Ross’s ability to look slightly unhinged (her reaction to the casserole incident with the neighbors is hilarious) and how funny Marcus Scribner looks when he’s confused, to really garner a lot of laugh-out-loud moments from a fairly predictable script (the “It’s All About the Benjamins” cutaway is pure gold). It’s clearly a show working with confidence right now – and with such a quick full-season order from ABC, the show’s potential is only growing and growing, potential on full display throughout the length of “The Gift of Hunger”.
Photo via ABC
Follow Us
