Bob Hearts Abishola, but do you heart them both?
You know how there are some pieces of media where it’s all great, except X? The best example here is how every single aspect of Community is the best show ever, except that Ken Jeong is there. But maybe you thought Friends was great other than Phoebe (if so, you’re smart). Or Newman ruined his Seinfeld scenes. Or whatever. A show is great, except X.
Now, what if they made the entire show out of X?
That’s not entirely accurate, but for Bob Hearts Abishola, it’s closer than you’d think. The show, in its first season on CBS, tells the story of Bob, a middle-aged, overweight guy who runs a sock company, who after a heart attack falls for his nurse Abishola, attempts to woo her, and ultimately (so far at least) ends up dating her. Abishola is a Nigerian immigrant with a son, a husband who has left her to go back to Nigeria, an aunt and uncle she lives with, and two friends in the hospital; Bob runs the family sock business along with his mom, sister, and brother, and has two Nigerian employees he goes to for help and advice.
It’s a fairly standard sitcom with the “Nigerian immigrant” twist, except that approximately two-thirds of the storylines are absolute garbage.
Take the very first scene. Literally, this is the scene they used to introduce us to the show. Bob (Billy Gardell), mid heart attack, is being hurried into the ER, flanked by his family. His mom (Christine Ebersole, at her most annoying) drops some casual racism. His brother (Matt Jones, somehow not at his most annoying) makes drug jokes. Bob stops the gurney for a second to let out a fart and see if that’s the problem (it isn’t). Again, this is the first scene in the show’s history. This — “fat guy farts to see if he’s actually having a heart attack” — is the scene they made and said “Yep, this is gonna be a hit.”
(I can’t find a clip to show you unless you have a CBS All Access subscription, so you’ll just have to believe me.)
Over the course of the season, Bob’s mom has a stroke and continues to drop casual racism at almost every opportunity. Bob’s pot-smoking siblings are wildly inappropriate, especially as the company’s HR head. His sister falls for one of the Nigerian employees and goes full Single White Female, leading to them having to buy off the employees and send her to a facility. Bob goes on a drunken bender and destroys the factory floor. The Nigerian employees take over the company for a bit and put the entire workforce into mutiny … which is then forgotten.
Really, it’s all just wildly, insanely objectionable and dumb and garbage TV. So why do I know all this? Why do I keep watching?
Because the entire show is not X. The Abishola side of things is actually decent! Abishola (Folake Olowofoyeku) and her hospital friends Kemi (Gina Yashere) and Gloria (Vernee Watson, filling her contractual obligation as “sassy nurse” that she has played in every TV show for 30 years) are a fun dynamic; her aunt (Shola Adewusi) and uncle (Barry Shabaka Henley) are fantastic.
It’s two absolutely polar opposite shows crammed together into one. And it falls largely upon racial lines, unfortunately — the white people are awful and annoying and racist; the Nigerian family and friends (and Vernee Watson) are funny and interesting and actually make for a good sitcom. Maybe this is because Yashere, of Nigerian descent herself, is a producer on the show and helped make it seem authentic. Maybe it’s simply the case of a show feeling itself out in the first season. (If you recall, Chuck Lorre’s other most recent show, Mom, started as the story of Christy, her mom Bonnie, her two kids, her ex-husband, and the restaurant she works in; the only characters left from the beginning are Christy, Bonnie, and occasionally the restaurant chef. It’s an entirely different show than it was when it started.) So maybe if BHA gets several seasons, they’ll find a reason to write Bob’s family out of the show and build it around Bob getting to know these Nigerian people he’s suddenly tied himself to.
That would not be perfect. Bob is not without his problems. (The next Billy Gardell role without some serious objectionability will be the first.) But I watch because the workplace interaction between Olowofoyeku, Yashere, and Watson is entertaining, because Barry Shabaka Henley has never done any wrong, because the “fish out of water” aspect of the Nigerians is actually entertaining.
Every show has something in it that doesn’t work. Most shows have something that does. It is very rare for a show to cram the most doesn’t-work and most does-work aspects together, in virtually equal quantities, and just say “Watch!” It’s like they made a show out of a yin-yang, where “yin” is racism and crappy white people, and “yang” is a bunch of interesting characters doing interesting things.
Should you watch BHA? I don’t know. It’s refreshing to see a network show that enables so many voices we don’t normally hear to be heard. How many opportunities have there been for Olowofoyeku, Yashere, or even the New Orleans-born Henley to have major roles? For that reason, the show is worth supporting. But at the same time, Christine Ebersole continues to sit there and yell things that should (and do) make you cringe, and Maribeth Monroe (last scene as the worst part of The Good Place, now arguably the worst part of BHA) persists in being inappropriate in every possible way.
It’s the most juxtapositiony show I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know if this is a recommendation or a condemnation. It’s both, and it’s neither.
Basically, I need someone to Garfield Minus Garfield this show for me, release an edit that is just Abishola’s side of the story, and see if that’s a better show. It’ll be shorter. But it might genuinely be a good show.