The episode “Please, Baby, Please” of “Black-ish”, which was controversially shut down before the air came by ABC due to its political content back in 2018, will finally make it to air on Hulu.
“Black-ish” maker Kenya Barris shared the news in a statement on Monday.
“We were one year after the election and came to the end of a year that left us, like many Americans, with the state of our country and envious of its future. Those feelings streamed down the page, became 22 minutes of television where I was, and still am, incredibly proud, ”Barris said. “‘Please, Baby, Please’ has not made the season air, and although much has been speculated about the content, the episode has never been seen in public … until now.”
Barris said he asked the episode to Walt Disney Television after resubmitting the episode of the show’s “Juneteenth” and “Hope” amid nationwide demonstrations for racial justice and against police brutality.
“I can not wait for everyone to finally see the episode for themselves and, as was the case almost three years ago, we hope it inspires some necessary conversation – not just about what we struggled with then or how it led to where we are. now, but talks about where we want our country to move forward, and, most importantly, how we are there together, ”he added.
In an interview with Variation that happened just when the news broke about the episode’s release, “Black-ish” star Tracee Ellis Ross revealed that she has never seen the episode before and has little recollection of it.
‘What I remember is that we shot the episode, and then we found out it was flashed, only that I thought to myself, was the reason? “I do not remember shooting anything, what we did,” Ross said Variation reporter Angelique Jackson. “It will be interesting for me to look back and remember it, because I really have no memory.”
At the time, ABC attributed its decision not to air the episode, which was exclusively reported by Variation, to “creative differences” with Barris and the producers that they “were unable to resolve.”
Barris used the same term “creative differences”, however, the argument over the episode was arguably a major factor behind his departure for a mega general deal at Netflix later that year.
Directed by Barris, the episode features the patriarch Dre of Anthony Anderson who takes care of his grandmother on the night of an intense thunderstorm that keeps the entire household awake. Dre tries to read the baby a bedtime story, but abandons that plan when the baby continues to cry. He instead improvises a bedtime story that over the course of the episode conveys many of Dre’s concerns about the country’s current state.
The episode covers multiple political and social issues. In one scene, Dre and eldest son Junior (Marcus Scribner) argue about the rights of athletes to kneel during the performance of the national anthem at football matches.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation, ABC’s concerns about the episode were related to comments made by characters about President Donald Trump, not to the football story.
