Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing South Central, which aired, for 10 episodes, on Fox in 1994.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, James Mosely returns to South Central!

Episode 1.5 “Men”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on May 10th, 1994)

Because Tasha has a babysitting job and Andre is sneaking out of the house so that he can check in on Nicole, Joan finally has a night to herself.  She goes next door, where Sweets (Paula Kelly) is throwing a party.  Sweets thinks that Joan should hook up with Dr. Ray McHenry (Ken Page), who is Andre’s mentor and who also brings in a $100,000 a year and who is also obviously in love with Joan.

Joan, however, is more interested in Isaiah (Michael Beach), who is a local food distributor who comes to the Co-Op on a daily basis and demands to be paid for the food that he’s dropped off.  Isaiah and Joan start talking and Joan is impressed to learn that Isaiah is also an independent building contractor and that he manages two apartment buildings.  When Joan mentions that there are still cracks in her bedroom from the last earthquake, Isaiah offers to come over to her house and take a look at them.  Joan takes him up on his offer.

Just when Joan and Isaiah are starting to get romantic, Tasha comes home from babysitting and see Joan and Isaiah kissing.  Tasha, who still believes that her father is going to come back into her life at any minute, gets upset and runs out of the house.  (As the child of divorced parents, this scene hit pretty close to home for me.)  Tasha does eventually return, as does Andre.  They both demands to know how Joan could bring some other man into the house.  Andre shouts that Joan should stop leading on Ray.  (Ray, of course, is standing in the room when he does so.)  Joan tells both of her children that her personal life is her business and that she doesn’t owe them any explanations.

Of course, the next day, Joan tells Isaiah that she doesn’t feel like she can get into a relationship with him or anyone else.  Her life is too complicated.  Isaiah promises to wait until it’s less complicated.

This episode was a good example of what made South Central far more interesting than other sitcoms.  Joan loves her children and she has sacrificed a lot to take care of them.  But, as this episode shows, she’s not always happy about that fact.  Having gotten married young and also having had to drop out of college after her divorce, Joan feels that she’s missed out on a lot of experiences.  At the same time, I can understand why both Tasha and Andre felt upset.  Andre doesn’t want anyone taking his role as “man of the house,” (though it’s not a role for which Andre is well-suited) and Tasha doesn’t want anyone replacing her father.  And then you have poor old Ray, who is the nicest character on the show and who, if we’re going to be honest, allows himself to be taken advantage of by both Joan and Andre.  None of the characters are all good or all bad.  Instead, they’re all very human.

That said, this episode suffers a bit because Michael Beach, who is normally a very good actor, gives an oddly stiff performance as Isaiah.  He’s handsome enough that it’s believable that Joan would want to invite him back to her room but the character doesn’t really have enough of a personality for one to feel that Joan is missing out by not having a long-term relationship with him.

Episode 1.6 “Dad”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on May 17th, 1994)

Tasha is celebrating her 14th birthday but she’s not happy.  She’s not happy about the decorations that Joan has hung in the backyard for her party.  (“It looks like Deion did them,” she snaps about the decorations that Joan was up until four in the morning preparing.)  She’s not happy when she discovers that the meat for the hamburgers was purchased at the Ujamaa co-op.  (I agree.  Co-op food is the worst.)  She’s especially not happy because she has yet to receive a present in the mail from her father, James.  Andre says that she’ll be grown and working at the post office herself before she ever receives anything from their father.  Joan is upset over Tasha’s resentful attitude but she keeps repeating, “It’s her day.”

As opposed to his sister, Andre is happy because Nicole comes to the party with her friend, Candi (Madlina Williams).  Though Andre’s friend, Rashad, originally dismisses Nicole as being “bougie,” he changes his mind as soon as he sees Candi.  As for Nicole, she seems to be excited about finally seeing Andre’s house but it’s hard not to feel that Rashad has a point.  In many ways, Nicole comes across like the type of rich activists who are convinced that they know what it’s like to struggle because they spent a week “living the wage.”

Halfway into the party, Tasha and Andre’s father, James (Glenn Plummer), shows up in the backyard.  While Tasha is overjoyed to see her father, neither Joan nor Andre are happy to see him.  James turns out to be very charismatic and soon, for everyone but Andre, he’s the life of the party.  He even manages to get Joan to dance with him.  When two gang members show up, uninvited, and nearly get into a fight with Andre, James is the one who is able to talk them into leaving the party.  Everyone treating James like a hero is too much for Andre and the two of them argue.  James accuses Joan of not properly raising Andre and says that Joan only cares about money and material things.  James reveals that it was Joan who kicked him out of the house and demanded a divorce.  James also suggests that Joan’s bad parenting is what led to Marcus’s death.  Joan slaps James and orders him to leave but then she can only watch in horror as Tasha leaves with him.

Six hours later, Tasha returns home.  When Joan asks Tasha what she and her father did for six hours, Tasha just says that they talked and had dinner and that they returned one of Joan’s presents so that James could use the money to buy a new jacket for Tasha.  Joan says that Tasha can love her father but it would be nice if she could occasionally show some appreciation for everything that Joan does for her on a daily basis.  The episode ends with the sound of Tasha sobbing.

Happy birthday!

Once again, I found myself very much relating to Tasha in this episode.  On the one hand, it’s easy to see that, underneath James’s charm, he’s basically an immature man who can barely take care of himself.  Tasha has idealized him, largely because she doesn’t have to deal with him on a day-to-day basis.  He’s just someone who sends her gifts and tells her that her mother is the reason why they can’t be a family.  At the same time, Joan may want to be thanked but how often has she thanked Tasha for taking care of Deion?  Joan has sacrificed a lot for her kids but Tasha is often expected to sacrifice a lot as well.  Andre gets away with everything because no one expects him to be responsible.  Tasha, meanwhile, is expected to always be the responsible one.  In the end, both James and Joan are guilty of making Tasha’s birthday about themselves instead of allowing it to be about Tasha.

That’s a pretty heavy theme for a sitcom but that’s what set South Central apart from other shows of the era.  It’s also probably the main reason why South Central only lasted 10 episodes.  As well-acted and well-written as this episode is, it’s still a birthday episode that ends with a 14 year-old girl sobbing in her living room.  There’s not a laugh track in the world that’s going to lessen that pain.

Next week: Andre gets a gun!