Stream It Or Skip It: ‘grown-ish’ on Freeform, Where Zoey From ‘black-ish’ Goes To College

Fans of black-ish have known that Kenya Barris has had a spin-off in the works for at least a year, and when Yara Shahidi starred in a back-door pilot episode where her character of Zoey Johnson experienced freshman orientation, they got introduced to some of the people who would be in that spin-off. Now, Zoey has started college, and ABC’s young-skewing network Freeform debuted grown-ish this week. Will Harris be able to continue to carry the balance of serious and hilarious he had on his Emmy-nominated ABC series? 

GROWN-ISH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Zooey is in her dorm room, and says to the camera that though she’s only been at college for 3 days, “My dad is already 5150.” On the other side of the phone is her father Dre (Anthony Anderson) sobbing “Why?” A not-so-subtle way to tell everyone that we’re in a spin-off, isn’t it?

The Gist: Zoey kicked ass and took names in high school (she even said so in her yearbook: “I conquered this bitch”). And, three days in, she thinks she might be able to do so at California University — she’s beautiful, popular and likes to contribute to causes. But when she finds herself in the midnight digital marketing class taught by her dad’s colleague Charlie (Deon Cole), she starts to realize she doesn’t have this college thing under control at all.

The first episode largely takes place in the classroom, where, Breakfast Club-style, we get introduced to the friends Zoey makes freshmn year and why each of them ended up in this class. Aaron (Trevor Jackson), the hottie she met at orientation, is there because he takes classes taught by Black professors… even ones as bad at their jobs as Charlie is. Nomi (Emily Arlook), the niece of the dean of students (Chris Parnell) is hiding her bisexuality from her family. Twins and world-class track stars Jazlyn and Skyler (Chloe and Halle Bailey) were fighting. Vivek (Jordan Buhat), whose family thinks is taking engineering classes, was selling pills instead. And Luca (Luka Sabbat) just doesn’t give a shit.

How did Zoey get there? She needed to avoid her first college friend, Ana (Francia Raisa) who she abandoned at an upperclassmen party after Ana started throwing up in a kiddie pool. The group think she’s the worst out of all of them, but convince her that it’s just a part of being in college: you find out who you really are and how you deal with things you’ve never seen before.

Our Take: If there was anyone who could have been spun off from black-ish, it’s Shahidi, who showed poise and charm from a young age. And she carries grown-ish with the same aplomb. The first episode seemed to be a bit of an on-the-nose way to introduce us to Zoey’s college crew, but Barris knows how to keep comedic momentum going, from Charlie trying to sell puppies in class to making Dean Parker inept and sad.

The style of grown-ish is a bit less frenetic than black-ish, with Shahidi breaking the fourth wall on camera as well as narrating. But more room is given to storytelling and less to graphics and other asides that the parent show does well. Also, with the freedom of basic cable, Barris is able to indulge in more adult language and situations, which will help him and his writing team dive into the very adult situations Zoey will get into at college. The second episode deals with how everyone medicates somehow to deal with the pressure, and the third one deals with the confusing nature of campus hook-up culture.

Of course, that’s where things usually come to life on any Barris show: the combination of the funny and serious. Zoey and her pals are all funny, but the serious issues 21st century college students have to face will be at the core of the show, and by the third episode that becomes readily apparent. It’s also good to see more to Zooey as she figures out that even someone who is as “together” as she is doesn’t have anything figured out yet.

One other note: after that early appearance by Anderson, Barris lets Shahidi and grown-ish develop without any help from the black-ish cast, which is always a good idea.

Sex and Skin: Nomi misses registration because she has a bathroom encounter with a fellow co-ed.

Parting Shot: Zooey’s original roommate moves out after a single opens up. She has a new roomie… and it’s Ana, the girl she abandoned at the party. Awkward!

Sleeper Star: We liked Raisa as Ana, but we hope her character, who thought she had things together like Zooey, but on the more conservative side, gets more of an arc than she’s had in the first few epsiodes.

Most Pilot-y Line: Setting up Ana as Zooey’s roommate seemed to be a little convenient. Also, since they end up patching things up by episode 2 and go back to being firends, it seems like a very sitcom-esque set up.

Our Call: Stream It. We trust Barris to get past the silly and take a deep dive into what your kids might be doing on campus these days. Also, because the show is on Freeform, it’s more geared towards those teens and college kids than their parents, so they won’t pull any punches. Shahidi makes a great ensemble lead, and she’ll only get better. grown-ish isn’t as good as black-ish yet, but it might just be by the time its first season is over.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch grown-ish on Freeform