Is it just me, or has Rainbow been pregnant for a long time? For the entirety of season three, the Johnsons have been talking about their new baby, so it’s amazing they haven’t picked out some basic baby names yet. We learn that Johnson tradition dictates that Dre picks the boy’s names and Bow picks the girl’s names (then how did we get Jack and Diane?). When they finally receive the gender from their doctor, they run down to a bakery and ask for a sex cake.
That wasn’t the best idea, especially when the first bakers end up being bigoted. The second baker only has a thing against French-Canadians, and Bow and Dre are too excited to press him about that too much. They will have to wait for the gender reveal party, but Bow has a good idea what the baby will be. She had a boy dream for Junior and Jack, a girl dream for Zoey, and a lucid nightmare for Diane. She had the girl dream again and is excited about naming her new little daughter.
Dre isn’t pleased. He was looking forward to having another son. His lone female coworker, Rachel, points out that daughters will be the ones who take care of you when you’re old (or in Diane’s case, will finish you off if it’s taking too long). His other coworkers talk over her about the joys of a son. Dre claims he’s been swayed to Team Daughter, complete with pink wardrobe, but is absolutely ecstatic when the balloon pops and blue confetti rains down. He’s happy it’s not a stupid daughter (cut to Zoey’s and Diane’s sad faces) and is a boy he’d be proud to call a son (cue to Jack’s and Junior’s sad faces). In one moment, Dre manages to alienate all his children. He manages to alienate Bow too when he announces that he wants to name his child DeVante.
What starts as a fun episode about the silliness of gender reveals turns into another deep episode about societal expectations. Bow isn’t opposing DeVante because it’s the name of the third fiddle of the fifth most important R&B band of the 1990’s. She’s opposing the name because it sounds too black.
Bow points out that, as someone named Rainbow, she’s uniquely qualified to talk about how a name can affect a person’s entire life. Dre disagrees. He’s sick of his coworkers making fun of traditionally black names. He gives them a great, short lecture on the tradition of white slave-owners stealing African names and civil rights activists taking them back. Charlie is so proud, he wants to go back to being called King Charlemagne III. That may not be true. Charlie lies a lot.
Bow doesn’t have a problem with traditional African names that sound sophisticated, she just has a problem with a name a barista won’t get right on a cup. She shows Dre empirical evidence that “Michael Johnson” will get more job opportunities than “DeVante Johnson.” In a plot born out of Dre’s love for Jodeci, it’s a heartbreaking moment. Anthony Anderson killed it a couple weeks ago with Dre’s election speech and he kills it again with the simple, plaintive “I hate the fact that when something is black, the world sees it as bad.”
Bow agrees. After some soul-searching by both, they decide to go for it. DeVante Johnson will take the world by storm, no matter what his name is.
In the lackluster B-plot, Junior and Jack scheme to get Zoey’s friend, Shelley, to go out on a Valentine’s date. Jack boosts Junior’s confidence after Shelley shows a glimmer of interest in him. Junior claims that he doesn’t consider Megan his girlfriend and Jack encourages him to go for it. After a few missteps, Junior gets Shelly’s interest. He then completely ruins it by inviting both Shelley and Megan for Valentine’s dinner. He gets dumped by two dates at once and Jack admits to Zoey that he shouldn’t have given Junior that extra confidence.
Now, poor Junior is spending Valentine’s Day with Diane watching videos of trampoline accidents. Hopefully DeVante Michael Johnson will have more game than his brother.
What did you think of tonight’s episode? Let me know in the comments!
