Monday, February 28, 2022

What I’m Watching: Bel-Air

Bel-Air: Season 1, Episode 5 “PA to LA” (B+)

It seemed like there would have to be something that went wrong during Tre’s visit, and his discomfort with Will have adjusted so quickly to it was just the beginning. Finding out that Will wanted to stay felt like the most unforgivable act of abandonment, and Will went right to Aunt Viv to express how unhappy and concerned he was that they weren’t going to be able to get past it. Tre did also manage to tell Carlton about Will’s gun charges, which undid any of the progress the two cousins had made at getting along and sent Carlton on the warpath. Having Lisa come over was an aggressive move, one that ultimately led to him trying to kiss her only to be told that she still felt that they couldn’t be together. Hilary’s big dinner party for her new housemates actually went pretty well, even with that worrisome prank, and Ashley got her own dose of affirmation from one of them that led her to confide in her big sister about a crush she had, which earned nothing but support from Hilary. That wasn’t the only instance of positive family interaction, with Viv telling Hilary she was proud of her, a simple sentence that seemed to heal a lot of the friction between them. Phil going viral for what he said to one of Hilary’s housemates was a good thing, and presumably it might be enough to allow him to win despite his defund-the-police stance, something that has already invited attack ads. I was pleased to see Michael Ealy as a new man in Viv’s life, someone who isn’t going to lure her away from her husband romantically but is definitely going to encourage her to get back into her passion.

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