Now Playing: 'The Carmichael Show' with special guest Sunshine

Sunshine and I recently hit that stage in our relationship where we have a show that we watch together. That show is The Carmichael Show and it all sort of happened by accident. Before I get into how it all happened, let me give you a little background on the show. The Carmichael Show, is about a black, middle class family in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jerrod Carmichael stars as a somewhat fictional version of himself. His character lives in an apartment with his girlfriend Maxine, a Psych major. Jerrod and Maxine spend a lot of time at Jerrod’s parent’s house where his older and recently divorced brother Bobby also lives.

I first watched The Carmichael Show by myself but I stopped watching after the first 10 minutes of the pilot. Days later I was talking to Sunshine about it and she convinced me to give the show another chance. We watched the pilot together and now here we are. We’re almost done with season two right now and it’s been enjoyable and cringe worthy at times. I’ll let Sunshine tell you why:

There aren’t many shows oriented solely around a black family on TV that highlight controversial topics such as sexual identity, police brutality and religion. Everybody has an opinion, but more times than not are too afraid to express it in fear of being judged by others. This opinionated family does no such thing. The show typically starts with a debate between Jerrod and Maxine. They often disagree on just about everything so they head over to Cynthia and Joe’s house (Jerrod’s parents) to discuss the issue as a family. Bobby typically has nothing to add to the conversation and he only really speaks when he is cosigning something Joe has said. A lot of the debate stems from Cynthia asking many questions and Maxine preaching or teaching the family a new lesson for that day. Nakeisha (Bobby’s ex) comes in from time to time to lighten the mood and crack jokes. 

Many viewers love this show for varying reasons, but I personally just now started truly enjoying it mid-way into season 2. I say that because I am very happy a show on both TV and Netflix talk about issues that most shows typically shy away from. But at the same time the issues are downplayed through jokes and common sense type questions from Cynthia. The issues addressed are no joke and viewers may be going through that issue only to watch this show and be laughed at and hear the same jokes they probably hear already. I know a lot of people probably think if the jokes were taken out it would not make much of a show. That may be true, but at least these everyday issues will be addressed and people will feel heard and respected rather than laughed at and not taken seriously because the issues were laughed off in between jokes.

She hit the nail on the head with my general thoughts on the show, but I’m going to get into some more specifics. The Carmichael Show returns to air for its third season on the 31st. While we’ve enjoyed the direction that the show has gone in its mid second season, there are still some things that we’d like to see in season three.

With this sitcom, there is so much room for character development. Although the characters reflect Jerrod Carmichael’s different opinions, the show carries itself off the strength of Joe and Cynthia who are played by David Alan Grier and Loretta Devine, respectively. Jerrod is the star of the show but he isn’t the most interesting character. This isn’t an uncommon thing in sitcoms, but my issue here is that we know nothing about his character. We know more about Maxine such as that she is a Psych major but the show does nothing with that. Not once have we seen her study for a test or write a paper, instead we hear Jerrod and his parents joke about how being a Psych major is financially unpromising.

We’re about to be two seasons in and we don’t know what Jerrod does for a living. He doesn’t even mention having a job, I’m starting to assume that he spends his day spewing out offensive things and telling his parents about it. Give Jerrod a job. Give him a coworker whose beliefs are the exact opposite of Jerrod’s. Make Jerrod a comedian for crying out loud. There are so many opportunities for him and the world of the Carmichaels to have depth. Otherwise this show starts to look like a radio show turned sitcom rather than a regular sitcom.

These characters may have a lot of interesting points about controversial topics but when that’s all they discuss they appear to be one dimensional. There’s nothing wrong with the show’s topical theme, but it wouldn’t hurt if they just went about their day like normal people once in a while.

To get back to Maxine, they need to tone her down a bit. I’m not saying to make her submissive, I’m saying make her less of an overly preachy voice of reason and make her more of a human being. Give her some hobbies and friends. There’s got to be something about her that interested Jerrod and she’s got to live for more than daily visits to her boyfriend’s parents’ house.

My biggest gripe with the show is Bobby’s character. Lil Rel Howery had us all cracking up with his scene stealing performance in Get Out. Why is he only there to suck up to his father? I’ve never seen an actor so misused. He can be the lovable loser, but damn, give him a chance to try and do something with his life. Why doesn’t he try to see other women? Why is he so buddy buddy with the guy sleeping with his ex-wife? This man’s only purpose to be a sad sack, cosign his dad and point out what we can clearly see but his parents can’t. C’mon man…

While we’re discussing Bobby, what’s the purpose of Nakeisha? I don’t understand how she can pop in the house whenever she feels like. She recently divorced their son and sleeps with other men, why and how is she welcome in their home? If she’s going to be around as much, let it be for good reason. Like, she and Bobby have a child, or she and Bobby remain good friends and there’s a chance that they’ll get back together.

There’s so many places this show can go and it’s a bit frustrating to see it restrict itself to the confines of Jerrod’s apartment and his parent’s house. While it’s important for a show about a black family to discuss current events, it’s even more important for there to be a dialog with the outside world. It’s hard enough to tackle these subjects in under half an hour, it’s even harder when the characters only speak about it with each other and most of them agree with each other. It leaves the viewer wondering if the family really learned something, more times than not it seems like they don’t. that’s another problem with topical nature of the show, it has a one shot, one kill approach. If there were to a gay character in season three we’d think to ourselves, wait, didn’t we already go over this? It makes it hard for the show to achieve longevity and that hurts its chances for syndication which would help immortalize the series.

Despite us having a lot to say about the show, we really do enjoy The Carmichael Show. It may sound like we’re ripping the show to shreds but it’s only because we believe this show isn’t reaching its potential. Like Sunshine said, many people love this show. Maybe we’re just too hard on it. Maybe we expect too much out of show that’s still young. One thing’s for sure, we’ll be tuning in on May 31st.