Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Ms. Pat Show’ On BET+, Which Is Kind Of Like If ‘Roseanne’ Were Uncensored

Patricia Williams, aka stand-up comedian Ms. Pat, has turned her real-life experiences as an ex-con, mother and comedian who moved from Atlanta to suburban Indiana into this fictionalized sitcom for BET+

THE MS. PAT SHOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a voiceover informs us, old-school, that this show was filmed before a live studio audience, we see Ms. Pat standing in a spotlight with a microphone in her hand, asking, “Any of you motherf—ers ever been shot before?” Pause. “I have. Twice!” She follows up with a minute or two of jokes to explain why and how, after which the lights come up behind her and we see the sitcom set of an airplane interior fill in behind her.
The Gist: So we’re introduced to Pat as a working comedian, and on a flight back to her home in Indiana, her small-talk interactions with the white-lady geologist two seats away from her establish how different their shared experiences are. The geologist misses her kids. Pat would only miss hers if they were dead, and jokes she didn’t realize you could have a career studying rocks, followed with a joke about her former crack habit: “You mean to tell me I’m a damn geologist?” When both women receive a text about a school shooting, this gives Pat the additional opportunity to tell the white woman how school shooters are always white, and how Black families live with the fear of police killing their kids. “You do realize Black people don’t have to play the lottery no more. You just wait until the police shoot your child, and you might get a $4 million check.” But then Pat sees, via her fake profile, that her son has posted a new Snapchat video, and eagerly shares it with her seatmate, only to be embarrassed when her son brags about having and using condoms.
All of that’s before the title card and opening credits, which fill in Pat’s family: J. Bernard Calloway plays her husband, Terry; Tami Roman (forever The Real World: Los Angeles in my book) as her sister, Denise; Vince Swann as 28-year-old son Brandon; Theodore Barnes as teen son Junebug; and Briyana Guadalupe as teen daughter Janelle.
Terry is singing and cooking in the kitchen when Pat arrives home from the airport, and their dialogue establishes the sitcom’s premise. He works as a mechanic for a military contractor, but after their Atlanta factory closed, they wound up having to move to Indiana. Brandon still lives with them and plays video games instead of growing up and moving out. Terry and Pat have stayed together for 19 years, but Pat jokes she’s only with him because his health care beats her life on the road as a comic, where she still has to strong-arm comedy club bookers to pay her on time. And oh yeah, Indiana is not Atlanta.
As Pat cracks: “We moved from Wakanda to Af-cracker-stan.”

Denise shows up and we learn she lives with Pat, too, is a recovering addict and just got fired from Panda Express for stealing food, which she took home with her for good measure.
Meanwhile, Junebug’s Snapchat reveals Janelle got into a fight at school, so Pat has to visit the high-school principal, who sees everything in, er, um, black and white. The school secretary can’t get Janelle’s name right. The principal assumes Pat is a single mother. But Pat combines her tough talk with humor to strike a deal with the principal.
That just leaves Junebug and the need for a sex talk.
And another talk with Janelle about adjusting to life in Indiana as the only Black girl in the school.
Since we’re still a traditional family sitcom, it’s all resolved with heart and humor by the end of the half-hour.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of?: The stand-up bits will remind you of Seinfeld first, but comedy nerds will also think of the short-lived Mulaney, since that sitcom also had the star performing within the confines of the sitcom set. But the heart of the show is very much aligned with Roseanne, except told from Pat’s perspective as a Black comedian.
Our Take: I’ve known Ms. Pat for more than a decade, so it’s encouraging to see she’s finally gotten this opportunity to turn her real-life experiences into a sitcom. And she’s gotten the likes of Lee Daniels (Empire) and Jordan E. Cooper (Pose) to support her on it.
And since it’s on streaming, it’s completely uncensored. There’s plenty of swearing and n-words thrown about. As well as some lines that might make you go hmmmm, such as when Pat jokes to her husband wistfully about the old days and “good kidnappers” who’d only stick a thumb up the kid’s butt before returning them home otherwise safely? Ah yes, the good old days when you only had to worry about child molestation.
But Ms. Pat kinda warned you in the opening seconds when she joked about getting her nipple shot off.
There’s no line too sacred to cross for the sake of keeping it real.
Memorable Dialogue: So there’s a moment in the pilot that’s symbolically and structurally a callback to the pilot of The Cosby Show. Bill Cosby, as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, told his son: “I brought you in this world, and I’ll take you out.” What does Ms. Pat say to her son in his bedroom in the heat of the moment? “I will kill your ass and still claim you on my taxes.”
Performance Worth Watching: Roman’s Denise might be the character you keep your eyes on at first, but if this sitcom is going to stick around, it’ll depend entirely upon how much you’re rooting for Pat.
Parting Shot: After an earlier scene in which Junebug cannot evade fruit thrown at him in the kitchen, Janelle successfully dodges the same from her mom, letting her know this family is going to be OK.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I’m learning home is where your family is,” Pat concludes.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Look, if you have BET+, then this is why you subscribed. You waited for someone to finally show Roseanne from an uncensored Black perspective, and here it is.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch The Ms. Pat Show on BET+