Review: Black-ish “Election Special”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

In the first half of the Election Special, Junior is excited to vote in his first presidential election contest, but dismayed when he finds out that he’s been purged from the voting list. Despite some benefits to being off the government’s radar that Pops points out, Junior can’t help but feel put off by this. He starts researching online and finds out about the country’s long and complicated relationship with racial tensions. Even though he’s disheartened by what he finds out, he realizes that the only way to change the system is by voting, and so he re-registers to vote.

For the second part of the special, Stevens, Dre’s boss, randomly decides to run for Congress, but learns it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Dre runs against him with the support of his family, but quickly realizes that special interests and big money control everything on the campaign trail. By the end of it, the only winner is a guy with even more money than Dre and Stevens.

Our Take:

Obviously, Black-ish isn’t normally animated. Instead of being delivered in the usual format, the show decided to experiment with a two-part “Election Special” that’s a lot different than what the series’ viewership is used to seeing. Though it’s being labeled by some as the start of the new seventh season, in reality Election Special is just two standalone episodes smushed together. They both deal with voting and elections, but they go about it quite differently.

In the first half of the two parter, Junior is looking forward to his first vote in a presidential election when he finds out some depressing news. He hasn’t even voted once and he’s already been purged from the voter rolls. This begins a rabbit hole of research that sees him experiencing some textbook history lessons about things like Black history, voter suppression, and Obama’s viral YouTube speeches. It’s mostly fairly surface level stuff, and it feels more like a Saturday afternoon educational program than a standard episode of Black-ish.

While the first half of the special felt a bit too stale and dry, the second part takes things up a notch, both in terms of storytelling and comedy. Instead of being an individual’s journey through the history of voter disenfranchisement, this half covers the experience of running for office as a normal citizen, and the big money and special interest groups that control the campaign funds. Complete with a cameo from the show’s creator, this section is a much more engaging and entertaining twenty minutes — even if its ending isn’t quite as happy as the previous segment.

Black-ish is a popular show, and that’s probably why the network felt like it could take a chance with two mostly animated special standalone episodes. Both episodes had competent direction thanks to the guy responsible for the Hair Love short, and the writing was good throughout, even if the first part wasn’t quite up to the standards of a usual storyline. The Election Special may not be the most entertaining or enlightening hour of television, but at least it might encourage more people to get informed and vote.