The Carmichael Show S1E3-4 Review



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After last week's good pilot and mediocre second episode, both of which showed potential, I was excited to watch more of The Carmichael Show, a vast improvement on its timeslot predecessor, Mr. Robinson. Similar to last week, it looked like both of tonight's episodes would talk about real issues, while the 9:00 episode talks about a much less controversial issue of health, and the 9:30 episode aims to tackle an even bigger topic, gender roles and sexuality.

S1E3 "Kale"

While the previous two episodes took a little bit to get funny, the third was funny right off the bat. Jerrod and Maxine were actually entertaining without other characters in the room, which is something I was very glad about. When the parents entered, the four characters played off of each other really well. The brother also came in, and he really wasn't that funny, but it was alright because the other four were so funny.

The plot of the episode advanced at a good pace, as about a third of the way through the episode Joe started to not feel well after eating kale. They then went to the hospital, which wasn't as funny as the dinner, but I did love the line "he's trying to Empire us!"

While the first half of the episode was great, the second half wasn't quite as funny. Jerrod was a little too focused on making sure his father ate healthy, though there was some funny moments, mostly involving Cynthia. Eventually in a confrontation Jerrod said that he wanted his father to take care of himself because he loved him, which was a really great moment. The episode ended with a lot of funny moments, concluding what has been the best episode of The Carmichael Show so far.


S1E4 "Gender"

The plot of the second episode took a while to progress. For the first third of the episode Jerrod was just talking about how he was going to be a big brother to a kid and he was meeting that kid. It was a third of the way through the episode when the kid told Jerrod that he was gay. After that, Jerrod talked with his parents about it, and when he decided what to say he talked to the kid again, who told him that he wasn't actually gay, but he was transgender. The first half of the episode progressed too slowly in the plot, and wasn't very funny.

While the episode's plot seemed like one that could be really great, it didn't deliver. As I said last week, the show wants to tackle serious issues, but it is having trouble doing it. The show does better with less controversial issues and when it uses a lot of humor. Also I didn't enjoy this episode as much because it seemed like there wasn't very much focus on the supporting characters, just Jerrod, while the previous episodes had a lot of the other characters. This episode did not meet my expectations for it.


I thought that "Kale" was a very good episode, while "Gender" was bad. I appreciate the fact that the show wants to tackle serious issues, but in both of the episodes that attempted at being more serious so far, it did not go well.

What did you think of the episodes "Kale" and "Gender"?

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