Line #13 YMMV/BlackIsh


1	* ArcFatigue: Many grew sick of the Dre and Bow's infamously dramatic marital issues going for several episodes.
2	* BaseBreakingCharacter:
3	** Ruby, a constant barrage of MyBelovedSmother and conservative strawman gags. Some fans think Jenifer Lewis' performance is enough to salvage it, but others just find her ungodly annoying, especially since she never, ever gets any comeuppance.
4	** To a lesser extent, Dre. While his tendency towards AesopAmnesia and his borderline hateful treatment of Junior are generally agreed to be serious flaws in his character, fans are divided on whether his HeelRealization and PetTheDog moments are enough to salvage him as a character or whether he's just too unlikeable.
5	* BrokenBase: The Dre and Bow separation arc. Either a well written story about marital differences, or cheap, ratings-boosting drama fodder. The fact that they were devoid of jokes didn't help either.
6	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Charlie quickly became perhaps the show's most popular character, with his CloudCuckoolander behavior and hints of his bizarre past. This was even enough to keep him on the main cast of the original show '''and''' get him in the cast its spin-off ''at the same time'', which from this point on removes him from his "Dark Horse" status.
7	* HarsherInHindsight:
8	** At the end of one episode in the third season, Diane and Jack talk about how great it would have been if Dre and Bow divorced and moan over everything that they won't be getting as a result of their marriage still being strong. Cut to the fourth season, and Dre and Bow have marital problems.
9	** In season 2's "Chop Shop", when Ruby takes over the family's Christmas card shoot and sets up an ''Series/{{Empire}}''-themed one. She casts herself as Cookie and picks Bow as "[[TokenWhite the white girl]] (Rhonda)", which is meant to illustrate her contempt for her daughter-in-law. It becomes even harsher after [[spoiler: ''Empire'' killed off Rhonda later on...]] .
10	** Just a few months after Dre held up Steve Harvey as an ideal black person's comedian, he got in hot water for meeting with Donald Trump and afterwards voicing his support, while at the same time making an extremely offensive joke about Asians being ugly.
11	** In an early season three episode, Dre makes repeated comments about how people are worried about his marriage to Rainbow when she keeps on openly disagreeing with him. Also, Bow jokes to Devante about going on Tinder to find herself a new man in "Bow Knows". Come season four, their marriage is actually in real trouble.
12	** In "Lemons", Dre talks to his colleagues about everyone in the country needs to stop insulting each other and start talking and listening to each other in the wake of Donald Trump election victory. He states that if they don't, the country will end up more divided than ever. As of 2020/2021, that is exactly what happened, especially after Trump's election loss and the Capitol riot.
13	* HilariousInHindsight: Major fantasy nerd Junior would later become one of the main heroes in ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower''.
14	** In "Super Rich Kids", Junior asks why his dad picking him up so early because he was going to see [[WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie the new]] ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie Lego Movie]]'' [[WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie sequel at his friend’s house.]] Dre then responds by saying "Because everything isn’t awesome". Funnily enough, [[WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie2TheSecondPart the 2019 sequel does actually feature a song called "Everything’s Not Awesome".]]
15	* {{Narm}}: "Blue Valentime" cranks the melodrama to ''Series/ThisIsUs'' levels. Complete with muted color palette, no music and characters acting way out of character for the sake of drama.
16	* TakeThatScrappy: Bow finally tears into Ruby in "Mother Nature". Even mama's boy Dre doesn't try to defend her.
17	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Dre and Bow taking in his teenage cousin Kyra had lots of potential, especially since she's a rather compelling character with good dynamics with the other family members. Unfortunately, she's only around for six episodes, during some of which she has no impact on the overall plot, before her birth father shows up and takes her back, and she hasn't been mentioned since.
18	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
19	** The show completely skips the kids' learning about Bow's pregnancy, which could definitely have led to some great material.
20	** Zoey's apparent lack of faith in God provided a wonderful opportunity to start a conversation about variance in religion, atheism, and spirituality, and their ability to peacefully coexist. Instead, Zoey is merely shown to be a repentant, lapsed Christian.
21	** Bow's struggles with being a pregnant working woman plays second fiddle to Dre deciding whether to take paternity leave. Making it weirder is that earlier the same season an episode had Bow taking over the narration due to having a closer take on the material.
22	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: The fourth season concluded with a 4 episode arc about Andre and Bow's relationship problems which promptly had the fanbase in a revolt due to the [[CerebusSyndrome sudden tonal shift from quirkly gag-laden sitcom to a character-focused drama]] with 3 out of the 4 episodes having a DownerEnding. Thankfully the story ended happily.
23	* ValuesDissonance: Season 3's Halloween episode "Mischief Night" is portrayed as overblown delinquent chaos -- with Ruby and Janine playing it up a la ''Film/ThePurge'', and Bow strongly advocating against it. To East Coast viewers (particularly ones from the New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania areas), for whom the tradition is a completely normal occurrence, Bow's overreaction is rather {{Narm}}-ish. Justified since it doesn't count as HollywoodProvincialism if the show is very explicitly set in LA.

Context YMMV / BlackIsh