"Grand Crew" Is Black Gold

Created and written by Phil Augusta Jackson who wrote for Insecure Brooklyn NineNine and Key and Peele and executive produced by both Jackson and Dan Goor who wrote for Brooklyn NineNine Parks and Rec Late Night With Conan and even the OG Daily Show Grand Crew follows a closeknit group of friends and their various interpersonal exploits as they hang around their new favorite spot a wine bar It stars Nicole Byer as Nicky Echo Kellum as her suckerforloveass brother Noah Justin Cunningham as their successfully married and supportive friend Wyatt Aaron Jennings as UCLA grad Anthony and Carl Tart as his hilariously downtoEarth roommate Sherm The comedy is comprised of welltimed and culturally accurate punch lines that support an overall narrative of emotional health and maturity that seems to run through the episodes I39ve seen so far Even still the show remains light on its feet probably because of all the practice that Jackson and Goor have had pulling off similar moves on shows like BrooklynThe series opens up on quotthe narratorquot played by TV legend Garrett Morris who I have fond memories of as Uncle Junior on The Jamie Foxx Show He delivers a short monologue about Black people not having any one particular temperament because we are not a monolith and quotour multitudes have multitudesquot Then we39re swiftly dropped into the lives of this quotgrand crewquot as they discuss the usual topics like their immediate personal plans and Noah39s ridiculous love life From there it just becomes a hilarious sitcom about a superrelatable group of Black friends and honestly I kinda love itI also dig the idea that this group will primarily frequent a wine bar As Sherm puts it in the show quotLeBron drinks it Wine is Black nowquotI39m happy to report that a lot of this stuff revolves around Noah In one scene Wyatt is checking in on him after an unexpected break up Noah says quotYou know at first I was like shotthroughtheheart shoutout Bon Jovi But now I39m stronger than yesterdayshoutout Britney Spears We are neverever getting back together shoutout Taylor Swiftquot Wyatt responds quotNoah those are the white people you listen to when you are saddest Are you sure you39re goodquot At that moment Noah was hallucinating his ex as a meteorologist on the news so no he was not goodAgain Noah39s lust for love seems to be the main thread throughout the series at least so far but that thread does weave its way through the emotional makeup of the rest of the crew at least thematically For example when Noah has a very onbrand emotional epiphany regarding the newly casual nature of his relationship with his ex and it almost leads to a breakthrough for his sister AlmostHis sister Nicky is the opposite of Noah when it comes to love and when it comes to her general approach to life The way she puts it quotLife isn39t a romcom If anything it is a psychological thriller where at every corner someone is trying to trick you or kill youquot She isn39t wrongNoah after explaining to his ex how his father39s chosen loneliness after their mother39s death motivated him to become a hopeless romantic finishes up by saying quotI39m just a boy standing in front of a girl saying I don39t wanna have sex with other people It39s too much pressure and what if I forget which sex moves are for what personquot Cut back to the bar and Nicky starts to have her epiphanyquotSo is dad39s emotional barrenness after mom died the reason why I try to collect as many dating experiences as possible while using humor to keep my walls up emotionallyquot she wonders We pause just long enough to think this may be serious and then with all the emotional subtlety of It39s Always Sunny39s Dee Reynolds she yells quotGulpboodaboo I guess we39ll never knowquotThat39s because they39re dancing on that line people This is too funny a show to cross it wholeheartedly right now Think a little less Insecure and a little more New GirlHonestly that39s really the vibe or at least the most comparable configuration You got a group of friends all sharing in one another39s lives in particularly overthetop but goodintentioned ways with a level of maturity that borders on silly so that we may enjoy lines like quotSo crying is worse than seeing someone39s genitaliaquot quotWay worse He saw my emotional genitaliaquotGrand Crew is legitimately a good time Seriously from the scene where Noah gets brutally Love ampamp Basketballed on you gotta see it to Anthony and Sherm39s slap boxing match over toilet paper and kombucha to Nicky finding out to her horror that she was smashing a Black Republican it39s all Black gold baby It39s an ode to the culture and friendship and wine and the idea that people of color have emotional depths that go beyond what we39ve all typically seen and it does all this without forgetting that the laughs come firstI can39t think of a grander crew to raise a glass with every week As the narrator puts it at the end of GC39s first episode quotamp193 votre santamp233 to your healthquotGrand Crew is telecast Tuesdays at 830 pm on NBCClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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"Grand Crew" Is Black Gold

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Ainsley Andrade

"About That with Carl Mayer": Involved Media Connected Audience Fall 2024 Report (Episode 5) - By Carl Mayer

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