Today, we look at how Roc‘s second season, which was filmed live, opened with Roc coming to a fateful decision regarding his brother, Joey.
This is “All the Best Things,” a spotlight on the best TV episodes, movies, albums, etc.
This is a Year of Great TV Episodes, where every day this year, we’ll take a look at great TV episodes. Note that I’m not talking about “Very Special Episodes” or episodes built around gimmicks, but just “normal” episodes of TV shows that are notable only because of how good they are.
All this month, I’ll be spotlighting great Black-centric TV episodes.
Roc was a sitcom that aired on Fox for three seasons in the early 1990s starring an impressive collection of veteran theater actors. Charles S. Dutton was the title character, Charles “Roc” Emerson, who was a garbage collector. He was married to Eleanor (Ella Joyce), who was a nurse. Roc’s retired father, Andrew (Carl Gordon), lived with them, and in the pilot, Roc became reacquainted with his ne’er-do-well musician younger brother, Joey (Rocky Carroll), who he hadn’t seen in five years.
Much of the story of the series derived from the conflicts between Joey’s fly-by-night view on the world, and Roc’s much more serious viewpoint. Of course, there were many episodes about typical Black social topics of the era, as well. The show tackled a lot of hot button issues.
Since the four actors were all such great theater actors, the show did a special live episode in Season 1. It worked out so well that the show went completely live starting in the second season. This would NORMALLY be considered a gimmick, but it can’t be a gimmick when EVERY episode is done this way, ya know? It went back to tape in Season 3 (my friend Zack is probably right that the actors were so professional, no one could even tell that the show was filmed live after a while, so what was the point?).
In any event, the Season 2 premiere, “Roc Kicks Joey Out,” it just what it sounds like, that Roc finally gets sick of Joey sponging off of him and his wife (and his and Joey’s father, who can’t say no to Joey), so he finally kicks Joey out for good. It does not go well.
Dutton and Carroll are both brilliant actors, and so it is a total treat seeing them just go AT each other, cutting the other to the quick as only those who have known each other for their whole lives can do. Roc is ashamed at how Joey takes advantage of others, while Joey is ashamed that Roc is willing to “settle” for being a garbage collector. Joey feels that he is destined for greater things, and he expects his family to help him achieve his goals, even if it means crashing on their couch indefinitely.
It’s raw, very well written stuff by the episode’s writer, Jeff Abugov, and the direction from the iconic Stan Lathan (the father of the brilliant actor, Sanaa Lathan), is excellent.
Obviously, we know Joey isn’t going anywhere for long, but it’s still good for Roc to get his feelings out there.
There’s a fun side plot where an artist Roc hired to paint his wife’s portrait from a photograph of her sitting on a bench with her White fellow nurse paints the White friend instead of Eleanor. Roc insists that he fix it, and the artist (a special guest cameo by Kadeem Hardison) “fixes” it by simply painting the White friend in, effect, Blackface with some Black paint on top of her portrait.
Okay, if I’m going to have 314 more of these (and 6 more this month), I could use suggestions, so feel free to email me at brian@poprefs.com!
