Black-ish: Crime and Punishment

October 23, 2014 2:45 PM - Season 1, Episode 5

Although Dre and Rainbow agreed they would no longer spank their kids, all bets might be off when Jack disobeys.
posted by cashman (6 comments total)

That was a disturbing piece of television to watch. And I think it knows that.
posted by Margalo Epps at 3:10 PM on October 23, 2014

I thought it was hilarious. But then again I come pretty close to having lived out some of those sequences. The show started out horribly with the pilot, but it has gotten worlds better to the point where it is actually one of the better shows on television. Yes I said that! I love this show now.
posted by cashman at 4:05 PM on October 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

There's an interview with the creator, Kenya Barris, that came out right before the show debuted, and he talks a lot about this episode. I really like how carefully the writing staff were thinking about this.

So, you would want this to be on next week?

In a perfect world, I would love it to be, because I feel like it’s important. ... There’s a lot of interesting conversations that are being had about this. We talked to all our writers, and [that] was really the way it came about. I think of the 12 of us, 11 had been spanked as kids. None of us spanked [our own kids]. And it was really interesting to see that. Why is that? We all kind of thought we grew up OK. Why didn’t we [spank]? It started a really interesting conversation, which led us to the differences in black households and white households, the differences in coastal households, the socio-economic differences, the ethnic differences, the cultural differences, the differences in people from other countries.

It feels honestly as if a lot of the country still believes in spanking: south, Middle America. A lot of the world actually still believes in spanking. And, of course, what’s happened with Adrian Peterson seems to be over the top, overboard. I don’t know the particulars of the case, but it seems to be that there were some definite lines crossed. But it’s still conversation-worthy in terms of where we’re at now and where we were 30 years ago. What’s acceptable to some and what’s not acceptable to some and who’s making the rules. It’s a really interesting episode, I’m really proud of it, but I do understand that it’s something that we sort of have to do in a different kind of way.

posted by gladly at 8:17 PM on October 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is the only new show I'm watching, on any network. I don't regard it as perfect by any means, but they're doing some interesting things.
posted by pmurray63 at 8:22 AM on October 25, 2014

I would just like to say, I had NO IDEA Laurence Fishburne was HILARIOUS. Just, put him in every scene, reacting.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:50 PM on October 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

The first episode of this show wasn't that great, but then every followup has been worlds better to the point this episode was phenomenal. I really love this show now.
posted by mathowie at 9:43 AM on October 28, 2014