Black-ish recap: Bow finally has to deal with her father’s passing

On the latest episode of Black-ish, Anna Deavere Smith is back as we finally get to see how Bow is dealing with the passing of her father. 

At the end of last season, Black-ish surprised audiences with a very serious, four-episode marital issues arc. The beginning of the healing actually resulted from a major loss, Bow’s father Paul (Beau Bridges) passing away. After this we see Bow and Dre decide to try to make things work but thus far in Season 5 neither the issue nor the loss of Paul has been mentioned.

That changed tonight as Bow’s mother Alicia (Anna Deavere Smith) shows up on the Johnsons’ doorstep. Paul’s birthday is coming up and she’s having a hard time. Bow is glad to have her there to support her but Dre is not. This does, however, cause Dre to ask his dad what he’d like for him to do after he passes, though he gets nothing back.

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Ruby, undeterred by Bow explaining that her mother is not a Christian, takes Alicia into her room to sing some sad hymns and let all of her emotions out. Because Bow can’t accept that this is going to be healing for her mother, she decides that she wants to throw a huge birthday party for her father. Because her father loved Hawaii, there will be a luau theme.

None of the family likes this idea for various reasons. Junior is worried about their old nudist friends coming, Jack is afraid of ghosts, Diane doesn’t want to miss out on an MMA match she was invited to (and she doesn’t), and Dre doesn’t want to have to deal with the white side of Bow’s family taking over his yard.

They respect Bow’s wishes however and the party is on. Everyone is enjoying themselves including Bow and Bow’s mother. They brought out Paul’s old Hawaiian shirts and are having guests wear them so it’s like he’s still there with them.

(There’s a great moment where a young white kid walks past Pops (Laurence Fishburne) with a tiki torch and Pops snatches it from him.)

During the party, Bow takes the mic to tell a funny story about her dad but telling the story in that moment suddenly brings all of her emotions to the forefront. She breaks down and has to leave the room as her mom follows her. Her mother points out that Bow has been working so hard to keep him alive that she hasn’t properly dealt with the fact that he’s gone.

She gets her big ugly cry out and acknowledges that Ruby was right. Ruby is glad to rub it in at the end of the episode.

Dre and Pops have another talk, and this time Pops gives him his real requests for his funeral. The last of which is to make sure Ruby doesn’t know he’s dead until he’s in the ground. He’s concerned she’ll do something to his body.

It was good to see the family finally discuss Paul’s passing. On Modern Family, Claire and Mitch lost their mother earlier this season and they spent an episode on her passing. It’s been interesting to see two different ABC comedies deal with the death of a grandparent within a month of each other.

Black-ish returns next Tuesday at 9/8 Central on ABC.