Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Twenties’ On BET, Lena Waithe’s Comedy About A Black And Queer Woman And Her Buddies Navigating L.A.

Lena Waithe has become one of TV’s leading creators because her writing contains a unique perspective as well as a degree of authenticity that is rare even during the Peak TV era. Her series The Chi and Boomerang have been successes for Showtime and BET, respectively; the latter is back in business with Waithe on the comedy Twenties, which Waithe created when she was the age of the title. Read on for more…

TWENTIES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Rousing old-time movie music, that sounds like superhero music. Shots of Silver Lake in Los Angeles. Two women naked and rolling around under the sheets, with a voice over stating that the neighborhood has “recently been bougified,” and describing how one of the women is in her twenties and is gay, and the other is definitely not in her twenties and definitely not gay.

The Gist: The voice (Lena Waithe) says that we’re in the overpriced loft because the younger woman, Hattie (Jonica T. Gibbs) “has found a new and creative way to screw up her life.” It’s not just the relationship with the older and supposedly straight Lorraine (Sheria Irving), but the fact that when Lorraine drives Hattie back to her apartment, all of her belongings are in the parking lot. She’s late with the rent again, and the landlady decided to evict her.

Hattie asks Lorraine if she can crash with her, but Lorraine thinks that would be too much of an escalation of their fling. So Hattie calls her buddies Marie (Christina Elmore) and Nia (Gabrielle Graham) to come get her, but before she gets her stuff, the three of them go to the Forever Hollywood cemetery to watch a screening of All About Eve.

Marie is married, but she and her husband Chuck (Jevon McFerrin) have had an intimacy dry spell, which Hattie is privy to after Marie tells her she can stay with them. Nia is single, staying celibate until she gets married, and is trying to figure herself out since she stepped away from her career as a child actor.

The three of them have known each other for years, but Hattie just moved to L..A. a couple of years ago, looking to write comedies for TV. Marie, a studio executive, knows that sitcom superstar Ida B. (Sophina Brown) is looking for a personal assistant, and wants to put in Hattie’s name. Hattie, though, is reluctant because she wants to write full-time, and also has very little respect for Ida B.’s sitcom, My Bae. During the job interview, Ida sees through Hattie’s BS responses about the show and reads Hattie’s critical tweets back to her.

Hattie thinks she’s botched the interview, but ends up going back to Ida’s house to apologize. Ida likes her honesty, encourages her to speak her mind, and offers her a job as a writers’ room PA on the show.

Our Take: Waithe created Twenties when she was in her twenties, and it’s not a surprise that Hattie’s character looks like Waithe and is pursuing the same career. It’s significant that the show, which Waithe runs along with Susan Fales-Hill, features a gender non-conforming, queer person of color; it’s a perspective that we’ve never really seen before, and pairing Hattie up with two straight friends shows that orientation doesn’t matter much when it comes to just trying to live in a big city like L.A. when you’re in your twenties.

The show itself feels a little heavy on quips and light on character, but that might just be due to the first episode’s concentration on Hattie. Though, what we know about Hattie, aside from her close relationship with her mother Esther (Kym Whitley), is that she doesn’t want to settle down either romantically or artistically, and that’s about it. Once we see her working with Ida B. on her sitcom, we’ll likely see if she allows herself to learn some lessons from a woman whose career she respects, even if she doesn’t respect the artistic choices that Ida has made.

What we enjoyed was the references to the Hollywood of a bygone era, like the All About Eve screening or the soundtrack that’s rife with old-style movie scores. It speaks to the fact that while Hattie’s experience in 2020 Hollywood is different in some respects, it’s an age-old story in others.

You could dismiss the show as “Pfft, millennials,” but Twenties promises to be more than just about people in their twenties navigating a big city. In Hattie’s case, it’s not just about being Black, or young; it’s about navigating the entertainment world as someone who’s young, Black and queer, something that Waithe has a lot of experience with. So we hope that she taps her deep well of knowledge about how tough that road is and gives Hattie equally daunting challenges to overcome.

Sex and Skin: Besides the first scene, where Hattie and Lorraine roll around in bed — much of which is shown from behind or under covers — there’s nothing.

Parting Shot: After leaving Ida’s house, job in hand, and after she calls her mom about it (Esther hates the show but is happy her daughter has the job), Hattie’s car won’t start, so she walks, earbuds in place, looking at downtown L.A. from the Hollywood hills.

Sleeper Star: Whitley is always hilarious, and we hope to see more of her as Esther as the season goes on.

Most Pilot-y Line: Hattie blurts out info about Marie and Chuck’s dry spell at a dinner party, which seems like more of a sitcommy development than anything else.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Twenties is definitely light on character development, but Gibbs shines as Hattie and the perspective the show presents is unique.

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.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Twenties On BET.com