YMMV / The Neighborhood

• Harsher in Hindsight: In Welcome to the Stakeout, Dave tries to say that he and Calvin are like Bad Boys (1995) and Dave is Will Smith. Calvin's response is to say that he is Will Smith with the second reason being that America still loves me. Much less funny a month after this episode first aired.
• Tear Jerker: In the season three finale, after experiencing the typical symptoms, Gemma learns that she is pregnant with her and Dave's second child. However, season four's "Welcome to the Porch Pirate" reveals that she unfortunately miscarried. The episode, which was written by then-showrunner Meg Deloatch (whom also experienced a similar unfortunate loss in real life), is about the reveal and everyone's reactions after the fact. Shockingly, it is also revealed that Tina years earlier also lost her and Calvin's baby (a girl) between her pregnancies with Malcolm and Marty.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Dave tends to invite himself into the lives of the Butler family and comes off as trying way too hard, to the point of being obnoxious. When Calvin gets annoyed by his nonsense? Dave tends to play the victim. He also comes off as tone-deaf at times with some of the things he says or does, such as when he tried to equate Calvin's unwillingness to associate with him in the first episode to the discrimination black people faced from white people during the Jim Crow Era when Calvin explained it to him (which would not fly well with audiences today given how white supremacists have tried Dave's very exact talking point during the Trump era), or audaciously tells Calvin "not all cops are bad" right after Malcolm (his neighbor and Calvin's son), his friend Trey and a protest march were brutalized by cops in the season 3 premiere "Welcome to the Movement".
  • Calvin's abrasive personality runs into this trope on occasion, particularly when Dave has an argument with his mother. The subject? His mother's racism—for some reason Calvin sides with her because Dave was being "disrespectful" to her. The reason this doesn't work is Dave was defending Calvin, rightfully so, after his mother called him a "(grease) monkey."
    • Another example is in late season five, wherein Calvin and Marty begin a new electric vehicle restoration business. In one episode, Calvin buys a large warehouse for their startup without first consulting with his highly intelligent and qualified son, whom rightfully calls him out on his exerting dominance in their partnership despite no experience in the STEM fields that such an endeavor requires. Calvin angrily dismisses Marty's understandable outburst as "disrespecting" him, conveniently forgetting the many times he disrespected Marty and the Black and Nerdy aspects of his life throughout the entire series (including in the episode itself).
• The Woobie:
  • Malcolm. He was on his way to becoming a professional baseball player, even going so far as playing for the minor leagues, but a Career-Ending Injury forced him out of the game. He's spent several years unemployed, still living at home and unsure of what to do with his life. Even though Malcolm's life is gradually improving, he still hates that he can't live his dream. Once he gets a job as a professional coach, he finally begins to enjoy himself.
  • Marty. As a kid and even now as an adult, he is routinely bullied and insulted by Malcolm, mocked and dismissed by Calvin, and even has little support and attention at times from Tina due to his job at NASA and proudly and unashamedly Black and Nerdy personality and hobbies, which are way too often the butt of the joke.