S04.E03: Welcome to the Sister From Another Mister

[jewel21]

Quote

When Gemma hires Alexis to teach at her school, Tina suspects the new teacher may not be quite who she claims to be.

Airdate: 10/04/2021

[CainF]

And I was just starting to like this series, after watching most of season 3 and enjoying the season 4 premiere.  This week's episode and last week's are complete misfires though.  The humor is about what you'd expect from a vehicle with Max Greenfield and Beth Behrs, but Cedric the Entertainer and T'china Arnold deserve better, and have both had better series.  

Cultural appropriation is this episode's theme, and it's played for maximum laughs until of course that point in the script when all of the fun has to stop so the teachable moment can happen.  A better sitcom - for example, this one's followup, Bob Hearts Abishola - would have handled the whole thing in a more satisfying way.  

The Neighborhood seems to be satisfied with caricatures for characters, and laughs that are barely worthy of a Disney Channel family sitcom.  What a waste of a talented cast.

[Katy M]

How incredibly racist that to test a black person, you test out their potato salad making skills and pop culture knowledge.  Not all people of the same race have to like the same things nd do things the same way.

And I'm almost sure there's at least one black person out there that would bait a cop.

Add to that the stupidity of a grant to hire someone of a certain ethnicity and then not allow you to ask. But really what difference did that make.  Gemma said she lied on her resume, so why wouldn't she also lie if directly asked?

[Harvey]

The writing in this episode has been really sharp. I loved the obviously fake play-acting Grover and Malcolm had to do for the mayor and it was so funny when Grover kept fake crying and it actually worked 🤣 . The "as white as the cast of friends" line was funny as well.  I was not bothered by the scene where Tina explained why what the woman was doing was cultural appropriation, I thought it was a concise and well-articulated explanation.

[theredhead77]

6 hours ago, Harvey said:

The writing in this episode has been really sharp. I loved the obviously fake play-acting Grover and Malcolm had to do for the mayor and it was so funny when Grover kept fake crying and it actually worked 🤣 . The "as white as the cast of friends" line was funny as well.  I was not bothered by the scene where Tina explained why what the woman was doing was cultural appropriation, I thought it was a concise and well-articulated explanation.

I laughed, hard, when Tina said "we know her first name is Karen". I also really loved the moments between Calvin and Malcolm at the baseball field. I hope we see more of this side of Malcolm.

[CrazyDog]

8 hours ago, Harvey said:

I was not bothered by the scene where Tina explained why what the woman was doing was cultural appropriation, I thought it was a concise and well-articulated explanation.

I thought her explanation was beautifully done. 

1 hour ago, theredhead77 said:

I laughed, hard, when Tina said "we know her first name is Karen". I also really loved the moments between Calvin and Malcolm at the baseball field. I hope we see more of this side of Malcolm.

The brothers are amazing. I loved the look on Malcom's face when he hit the home run. He'll be a great coach for the kids. 

The show is definitely leaning into some more serious topics this season, but still keeping some of the funny. The preview for next week looks rough though. 

[MaryMitch]

Sorta off topic, but lately I've heard about people putting raisins or nuts in potato salad. Maybe it started with this:

(the potato salad starts around 5:14)

I've asked many people on several sites I visit, and no one has ever seen potato salad with raisins. It sounds pretty gross to me, and I've eaten a lot of potato salad!

 

[Empress1]

21 hours ago, CrazyDog said:

The brothers are amazing. I loved the look on Malcom's face when he hit the home run. He'll be a great coach for the kids. 

I’m so excited for him (a fictional character, heh). Keeps him involved in his community and with the game he loved and was good at. I also loved seeing Calvin’s pride when Malcolm hit the home run.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:42 PM, MaryMitch said:

Sorta off topic, but lately I've heard about people putting raisins or nuts in potato salad. Maybe it started with this:

(the potato salad starts around 5:14)

I've asked many people on several sites I visit, and no one has ever seen potato salad with raisins. It sounds pretty gross to me, and I've eaten a lot of potato salad!

 

That was one of my favorite skits. 
Now that you mention it I’ve had chicken salad with nuts and raisins, but I’ve never heard of potato salad with those ingredients. Still a good joke. 

[Empress1]

12 hours ago, GussieK said:

That was one of my favorite skits. 
Now that you mention it I’ve had chicken salad with nuts and raisins, but I’ve never heard of potato salad with those ingredients. Still a good joke. 

Chadwick Boseman (rest in peace and power) and Tom Hanks on Black Jeopardy are two of the funniest SNL skits in recent memory. (Raisins in potato salad sounds gross.)

[love2lovebadtv]

On 10/5/2021 at 11:53 AM, CrazyDog said:

I thought her explanation was beautifully done. 

The brothers are amazing. I loved the look on Malcom's face when he hit the home run. He'll be a great coach for the kids. 

The show is definitely leaning into some more serious topics this season, but still keeping some of the funny. The preview for next week looks rough though. 

I love the two brothers. And I wonder if the show is moving toward a different path for Malcolm. That would be a great addition!

On 10/4/2021 at 9:19 PM, Katy M said:

How incredibly racist that to test a black person, you test out their potato salad making skills and pop culture knowledge.  Not all people of the same race have to like the same things nd do things the same way.

And I'm almost sure there's at least one black person out there that would bait a cop.

Add to that the stupidity of a grant to hire someone of a certain ethnicity and then not allow you to ask. But really what difference did that make.  Gemma said she lied on her resume, so why wouldn't she also lie if directly asked?

I think there are Black people who would bait a cop, especially someone like that character (had she actually been Black). 

And yes, I hated the Black person test, which was basically just pop culture and potato salad. Plenty of Black people would have failed that test. I know it's just a show but sometimes I get frustrated by the stereotypes it perpetuates. 

[Queena]

I love this show. I'm in the middle of re-watching King of Queens and it's funny to see this actress on this show. I wasn't offended at all, everybody wants to be Black, until it's time to go through the Black experience. I think that Tinicia character handled her and her appropriation appropriately. 

[Katy M]

27 minutes ago, Queena said:

everybody wants to be Black

Do they?  I've never really given it much thought?

29 minutes ago, Queena said:

until it's time to go through the Black experience.

I don't really think she had a bad experience.  She was falsely accusing a cop of all kind of things and all he was doing was side eyeing her.  She was trying to make her own bad experience.

[Empress1]

14 hours ago, Queena said:

I'm in the middle of re-watching King of Queens and it's funny to see this actress on this show.

She’s also on black-ish sometimes as the Johnson’s neighbor who is kind of clueless about race, so this was a funny turn for her.

[callie lee 29]

She's Nicole Sullivan and she's been in a ton of stuff but I mainly remember her from MadTV and Scrubs (Jill Tracy). 

[Queena]

On 10/14/2021 at 7:15 PM, Katy M said:

Do they?  I've never really given it much thought?

I don't really think she had a bad experience.  She was falsely accusing a cop of all kind of things and all he was doing was side eyeing her.  She was trying to make her own bad experience.

That's a old joke from a Paul Mooney comedy routine.

 

What she was doing was living out her fetish. The worst form of racist love that a person can show a Black person. She was acting out her form of racist love, which is what black fishing (what her form of culture appropriation is called) is. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. 

[EtheltoTillie]

On 10/15/2021 at 8:00 PM, callie lee 29 said:

She's Nicole Sullivan and she's been in a ton of stuff but I mainly remember her from MadTV and Scrubs (Jill Tracy). 

That was Nicole Sullivan?  I totally did not recognize her. 

[Jaded]

I was having trouble sleeping so decided to watch some stuff on Paramount+. I hadn't watched any episodes from this season as of yet but am going through the first few this morning. As soon as I saw Nicole Sullivan and got what the buildup for the storyline was in regards to her character all I thought of going forward was Rachel Dolezal. I hadn't seen a show that I watch as of yet have a character based on her behavior until this one decided to.