Review: Black Dynamite ”Diff’rent Folks, Same Strokes or The Hunger Pain Games”

Spoilers Below

Phillip Drummond shows up to the Whorephanage to take a look around and get a sense of what kind of conditions the children are living in on a day-to-day basis. After a thorough inspection, the multi-millionaire decides to call up child protective services leading to the relocation of all orphans to that of Drummond’s SWEET pad. Two of the orphans, Arnold and Willis Jackson, have a difference in opinions on both locales with Arnold preferring the upscale digs of Phillip Drummond and Willis likening the tittie milk and Sugar Smacks whilst living in a house of prostitutes. Black Dynamite can’t stand to part with the kids, but his Whorephanage staff certainly prefers making money off of whores, and not having to take care of a bunch of kids certainly has its perks as well. Whatever the case, Black Dynamite seeks the means to make his establishment a great place for whores AND orphans and he won’t let anyone get in his way.

The next day, we follow Arnold and Willis into a sold out arena hosted by Phillip Drummond. Turns out, Phillip is into starving his kids and making them take part in fights to the death for a chance to eat. Arnold turns into a food-craving zombie and this fight gets underway. Eventually, Black Dynamite gives up on working with kids ever again, and instead turns to his staff to try and figure out a companion business to the whore house, but nothing works so the staff begins to miss their kids. Little Orphan Dudley shows up looking rough-shod which leads Black Dynamite to seek out Drummond and return the favor. Black Dynamite shows up to the arena JUST as Arnold is about to destroy Willis and confronts Phillip. Phillip tries to take Willis hostage, but Arnold turns him into ‘Rocket Man’. Cream Corn takes one for the team in ‘satisfying’ Child Protective Services, and the orphans are back in the whore house.

The first year that New York Comic Con ever ran, where they do press now they used to do autograph signings featuring all of these half-dead celebs. There was a decent crowd up there, but I’ll never forget walking by this one booth featuring Gary Coleman (Arnold). He was pretty much all alone with no one wanting his autograph and it was by far the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen. I ‘ve always wondered to myself, ”How did Gary get THIS bad?” Well, Black Dynamite very well could have answered a lot of my questions just from this episode.

Ironically enough, years later Bubbleblabber would have a run in with Todd Bridges (Willis), but we won’t get into that. Instead let’s just focus on how good this week’s episode was. The reason why this week’s episode was great s because for the first time ever we were able to get to know the orphans a little better than usual. We’ve had story lines in the past where they were held hostage and whatnot, but other than the occasional ass-whipping, we really never got a chance to really interact with the kids. That all changed this week as the first 10 minutes or so were all told from the vantage point of the Jackson brothers which offered us a totally original and fun vantage point. Black Dynamite and the producers that make the series have done a fantastic job at making sure nothing is really monotonous, and instead you never know what’s going to happen next.