It’s Andre and Rainbow’s 15 year anniversary and they want to celebrate by bringing all of their family together for a vowel renewal ceremony. We’ve already met (and fallen in love with) Andre’s parents Pops and Ruby, but this week we get to meet Rainbow’s parents as well.
After the oldest Johnson kid Zoey had an entire episode to herself, Junior gets his turn. Andre overhears in the morning carpool that Junior’s being bullied at school. Since Andre was bullied himself as a teenager, he figures out that he can help Junior defend himself.
This week, Blacki-ish tackles interracial dating when Zoey starts dating a white French boy named Andre. At first, it’s clear that her dad Andre Johnson has problems accepting him because he’s white, but his coworkers make matters even worse by insinuating that he’s likely to be very sexual because he’s French.
So far, some of the strongest Black-ish episodes have been for holidays, such as the Halloween one. However, this Valentine’s one was unnecessarily acidic and mean-spirited. Andre uses World War I as an extended analogy for his Valentine’s day struggle with Rainbow.
It’s Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, and that means the Johnsons will take their annual ski trip. “Martin Luther Skiing Day” …get it? Andre forces his family into taking this rigorous trip when they’d all much rather spend their vacation relaxing at home or by the spa.
For an episode exploring the fiery passions ignited by men getting into violent confrontations, “Law of Attraction” lacked energy. It was funny and cute, but hardly memorable. That’s surprising since this marks the first time Ruby (Jenifer Lewis) and Pops (Laurence Fishbourne) have had a shared storyline on the show.
I was really looking forward to another holiday episode after the stellar Halloween one and the great guest appearance by Jenifer Lewis in the Thanksgiving one. She is back this week as Ruby, Andre’s mother. I was disappointed that their relationship didn’t seem as close this time around, and almost all animosity had disappeared between her and Rainbow.
This episode is all about the Johnsons having each other’s back, especially Dre having Rainbow’s back. When Andre notices that his family has been keeping to themselves in the house lately, he devises a way to bring them all back together. He cooks up matching “Team Johnson” shirts for them all to wear at Jack’s baseball game.