Emmy Episodes: Black-ish

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the third year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

Black-ish: Season 4, Episode 4 “Advance to Go (Collect $200)” (B-)

I’m not sure if this show has featured a family game episode before, but things devolved pretty quickly in this pretty over-the-top half-hour. Not only is this the third of this show’s submitted episodes for Best Comedy Series, it’s also the choice for Anthony Anderson, who is on his fourth consecutive nomination for Best Actor. Last year, I actually thought that Anderson could win based on his post-election episode stressing unity in divisive times. He didn’t, of course. An installment in which he plays Monopoly and gets way, way too into it hardly seems like as poignant a showcase. That’s mainly because, instead of making a triumphant speech that shows how noble and idealistic he is after he just makes joke for a while, we see his descent into isolation and then a less-than-serious apology and reconciliation with Bow before having to shell out $100 in real money to each of his family members because he, as usual, flipped the board when he got angry. Bow had some problems with Junior’s white girlfriend Megan in her submitted episode last year, and now she’s downright ignoring everything she says. Megan knows just how to play that though, tempting Junior with the allure of her hot tub if he takes her side. Ruby and Pops make quite the formidable and brutal team in the game, and now it seems like they may be giving their relationship a shot again after what I presume has been many years of separation.