The supposedly controversial ‘just, Baby, just’ is sweet, searching, and prophetic.
Remember when North Korea was the hourly existential terror?
(Such a possibility made a clean statistical sense; after all,wedidnt vote for him.)
ABC
SoCals bout with atomic paranoia got dramatized one year later with the explosive beginning ofAmerican Horror Story: Apocalypse.
Turns out thatblack-ishgot there first.
He cant sleep, and neither can his new-ish-born son Devante (August and Berlin Gross).
And Devante is wide awake because, like, hes a baby.
Tell a bedtime story, Dre!
He grabsGoodnight Moon, and Devantes not interested.
That little bunny boy in his money-colored room with a full fireplace and multiple framed artworks?
No question: #whiteAF.
Slaves are, errr, really cheap gardeners.
Rainbow pipes up from the bed, begging Dre to talk about something else.
Cant she have some peace here in her bedroom?
Today, these bigots are marching around here with their own camera crews.
The younger Johnsons have their own struggles.
Even twins Diane (Marsai Martin) and Jack (Miles Brown) are wide awake.
Let me guess, says Dre.
Nope: Theyre scared of the storm.
Ofallthe storms: The weekly hurricanes, the weather out of control.
Also, now theyll Google why they should be afraid of North Korea.
Black-ishcreatorKenya Barrisco-wrote hey, Baby, hey with Peter Saji, and directed it himself.
In 2018, yo, Baby, yo would have been recognizable as a plaintive soliloquy in sitcom form.
Its about Trump and about Kaepernick, but also about climate change and nuclear war.
Dres an advertising executive, and he recognizes a good sales pitch when he sees one.
Trumps supporters, he explains, are buying White Pride.
The web connection declared creative differences."
Barris left fora Netflix deal.
Seen this week, the episode remains powerful, built around a desperation thats only gotten more potent.
The rush of transformative context has turned the supposedly controversial Kaepernick references into the episode’s lightest softball.
In 2018, the man was ostracized for his activism.
Now,that activism got him a Netflix deal, too.
Its fascinating to slot yo, Baby, yo into the larger cultural reaction to the Trump administration.
Getting a Spike Lee cameo wasnt exactly hot zeitgeist action when the episode filmed in 2017.
Its striking to consider the interior mega-corporate headspace that okayed one project and not another.
Okay: A fantasy shadowboxing implicit meanings via subtext and But is the villain actually a hero?
think-piecery and a happy ending.
Not okay: A strange little fable about a rough night in an unsettled American home.
The two can coexist, of course but only one was allowed to exist.
Dont underrate the thrilling danger of blunt reality, I guess.
And never assume, kids, that Disney knows whats best for you.
Take a trip to glorious Pastville, with no possibility of people addressing current events!
One season and two seasons, respectively: You blew it, ABC.
In contrast to theRoseannemess, its striking how low-key hey, Baby, hey really is.
Dre wonders if its hypocritical to support James Brown singing Im Black and Im Proud!
while condemning the notion of white pride.
Junior worries the anthem protests are denigrating the armed forces.
The Socratic structure is repetitive, no question.
Then again: This material, in this conversational and non-argumentative form, was already too sharp to air.
You blew it, ABC.
The episode strains too much, really for graceful resolution.
Dre sees his family in bed, all together sheltering in place.
At that moment, everything suddenly came into focus, he says.
I knew that everything was gonna be okay.
Well, that was then.
“hey, Baby, hey” is streaming now on Hulu.
