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 sixth 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 7, Episode 1 “Hero Pizza” (B+)

This is one show I used to somewhat look forward to watching each year when it was nominated for Best Comedy Series, but of course that hasn’t been the case the past few cycles, so I was left with just an odd episode or two. Now, the show is back in the race as it heads into its eighth and final season this fall. I don’t watch a lot of network television and so I sort of figured that “This Is Us” was the only show actively incorporating the pandemic into its storylines, but that’s definitely not the case. I think I enjoy watching other people do things that I did or saw other people doing early on in the pandemic, like looking at a window at the horror of people being too close to each other or hugging, or alleging that they were doing everything safely while forgetting about a few key activities that contradicted that sentiment. I was pleased to recognize Judy Reyes from “Scrubs” and Parminder Nagra from “Alcatraz” as the two doctors tired of eating pizza with Bow, and I thought they were regular characters who had joined the show, but apparently this is their only appearance. Junior’s deception was an entertaining subplot, especially since he was the one seemingly maintaining the strictest of rules. Dre wanting to be considered an essential worker and creating ads that didn’t quite track with reality was relatively similar to fake SuperBowl ads portrayed in an Emmy-submitted installment of “Saturday Night Live” I just watched, but the plotline worked decently, especially considering how Dre always like to be the center of attention and this was no exception.