When the producers of Black-Ish (my favorite modern sitcom) announced a spinoff centered around the oldest sibling’s college experience, I almost flipped my wig and fell on the ground (literally). Black-ish has been known to be educative, woke and extremely humoristic. For the last four seasons, the writers have made the viewers both laugh and learn. I did not think it could get any better than that; then Grown-ish premiered and, in my opinion, changed the game!
The show promised to follow Zoey Johnson, the eldest daughter of the Johnson family, journeying through college in a humoristic yet realistic manner. Kenya Barris, creator of the show, explained in an interview with Uproxx that she wants the show to feel as real as possible. The writing crew consists of young writers and the producers work really closely with the actors to make episodes speak to their audience. Barris admits in Uproxx to including sprinkles of her personal experiences in college to the writing, but she insists that collaboration is really what makes the show.
After tuning in religiously for the first episodes, I fell in love not only with the writing, but with the diversity of the cast, the stories as well as the overall execution. There is literally a story for everybody. The show explores the complexity of college, dating, drug culture, partying, balance, friendships and situationships (friends with benefits, best-friends with couple tendencies, grey area friendships, ex-lovers, occasional lovers, etc.) as well as the hardships of being away from home for the first time. The core characters are a group of students who randomly meet after they all enroll in a sketchy night class. As the first episode advances, you find out about their backgrounds, their fears and their aspirations for college.
You have the passionate woke student (Aaron) who is part of the Black Student Union (BSU) and who tries to fight every injustice he sees on campus towards minorities. You have a Catholic student (Ana) who has never been away from home and who tries to find balance between her faith and her newfound freedom. You have the sassy twin sisters (Jazz and Sky) who are the “success story” kids–meaning that out of their bad circumstances, they succeeded in going to college and now feel the pressure to not disappoint their whole community back home. You have the student (Vivek) whose from an immigrant middle-class family and wants to obtain more from life than his parents ever got through all means necessary. Then you have the queer student (Nomi) who is a free spirit and who tries to enjoy college while still worrying that she is disappointing her parents by not being the straight Jewish girl they hoped for her to be. There’s also the student (Luca) who is always chilling and who has relaxed views on the world and education, and finally you have the student (Zoey) who thought because she had it all figured out in high school that college will be a piece of cake–although she quickly realizes that college means adjustments and that she does not really have it all together.
Reported by Deadline.com, Grown-ish’s premiere drew in 1.56 million views making it Freeform’s biggest comedy launch since Shadowhunters in 2012. Women in particular were the ones reported to have tuned in.
All in all, Grown-ish is funny, woke, fierce and relatable. The show will make you nod in approval, cry, and dance all at once. I am extremely excited to see what the rest of the season has to offer and you should be too!