As a young show, there are bound to be rough spots throughout the first season of Black-ish: to expect every first season episode to be “The Talk” would just be unrealistic. Instead, we’re more likely to see episodes like “Color Commentary”, an episode clearly trying to make a point about marital support, unfortunately muddled underneath a lackluster resolution and a pointless B-story. There are components of a strong episode in “Colored Commentary”, but it’s mostly relegated to the comedy of the episode; when “Commentary” start to try and wrap things up in a poignant way, the flimsy construction of the half hour falls apart a bit.
Penned by former Living Single producer (and first African-American woman to develop her own prime-time series) Yvette Lee Bowser, “Color Commentary” tries to make its points about marital support and racial paranoia through Bow and Dre’s argument over… the commentator at local Little League games? At first, it appears “Commentary” is focused on the paranoia component, as Bow becomes increasingly infuriated by the commentator’s vaguely racist comments (calling Jack a “natural athlete” and a “panther”) – and there is a story to be told there, about minority parents trying to shield their kids from racism, only to end up overreacting to the simplest things. But “Commentary” is more interested in the strife it causes in the central marriage, with Bow later feeling unsupported by Dre, who cracks jokes at the baseball games in front of the emotionless white baseball moms – and later on, gets them suspended when he tries to make a fool of the commentator (played by an unfortunately neutered Ken Jenkins).
Underneath it, there’s a story about the kids goofing off, a story that adds up to “snitchin’ don’t pay… except it kind of does”: after fooling around and putting a hole in the wall, Diane cops to what her and the other kids did, starting an internal beef within the children of Team Johnson (who also don’t like to wear family-oriented t-shirts). This story… really has no point, except to insert some hijinks for the kids and let Andre Jr. be his normal, ridiculous self (which is perfectly fine with me); there’s just nothing of substance to be found here, a story playing off the few known qualities of each child, without really adding much to anyone. In the end, their story just serves as a catalyst to solve the episode’s main conflict: which comes down to Dre learning when to tell his wife when she’s right and wrong (a situation that comes from a simple lack of common sense, never the greatest entry into a resonant comedic story).
Everything about “Colored Commentary” is so slight and scattered, it quickly becomes an entertaining and completely forgettable episode of the show. It’s almost like Black-ish Lite, dialing down the racial commentary to a whisper, and removing any non-Johnson family components from the proceedings for the entirety of the half-hour (including Pops, who nobody seems to care about anymore… though it gets me excited knowing he’s not around because he’s filming Hannibal). It’s not a bad episode, per se: just an inconsequential one, a half hour without any signature joke or inner truth to hang its hat on.
Photo via ABC
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