After eight seasons, the ABC show ‘Black-ish’ came to an end on Tuesday night.
The show began by mirroring its pilot episode with Andre Johnson (Anthony Anderson) waking up to his alarm and narrating his thoughts.
“OK, so I’m just your standard, regular, incredibly handsome, unbelievably charismatic Black dude who’s found a way to actually go from broke to the Oaks without a jump shot, number one hit or being Tyler Perry,” says Dre. “Against the odds, I made a home for myself with my beautiful and intelligent wife, where we raised five great kids and looked after my parents. I may have grown up just a kid from Compton, but now I’m living the American dream.”
The narration was similar to the one he did for the first episode.
As the episode progresses, Dre begins to question whether it’s time to move out of his Sherman Oaks home.
With the help of Simone Biles Dre is able to further realize that it may be time to move on to something else.
“What is it that you want? If I’ve learned anything, you have to do what you want to do and not what anyone else wants you to do,” Biles says to Dre.
After a talk with Bow (Tracee Ellis Ross), she reveals she had been feeling the same
“Between the election and the pandemic, it’s making me reconsider what’s important,” admitted Bow.
The couple then makes the decision to leave their Sherman Oaks home and move to a Black neighborhood.
Later in the episode, Dre and Bow walk through their empty home and feel a bit of sadness.
“I keep telling myself, these are just four walls but it feels so much bigger than that,” Dre says
“Because it was our home. We made a family here. Laughter, heartbreak, births — a lot of births. Deaths. We did it together. Right here.”
The couple then decides to throw a New Orleans-style funeral for their home.
As the series ends, a new Latino couple is seen moving into the Johnson’s Sherman Oaks home.
Throughout the episode, a side plot of Junior (Marcus Scribner) deciding to go to college at Cal U isn’t seen, but Junior’s character will be joining the ‘Grown-ish’ crew full-time for next season.
That leaves room for potential Johnson family appearances or even a potential reboot in the future.
“I am certainly not opposed to it and I don’t think it’s the last you will see of the Johnsons,” Ross said to Variety. “But there’s nothing on the docket at the moment but I would jump into that playground any day. It was a treat while it was happening. And I’m sure it would be time to pop back in and I’m so excited for Marcus.”
“I think there’s a hundred more episodes I’d love to do but every book comes to an end,” said series creator Kenya Barris during an interview with THR. “And I think that this is the right time to do this, and we were so happy that we got to think about it. A lot of shows do not.”
Photo Credit: ABC
