You can’t accuse Tyler Perry of not being productive.
The multi-hyphenate creator and recent Cowboy Carter Tour attendee has produced project after project since signing a first-look creative deal with Netflix in 2023. From well-received historical dramas to questionably made legal thrillers (not to mention two more Madea movies), Perry has basically created his own universe of Netflix content.
That now includes his new sitcom Tyler Perry’s She the People, which stars Terri J. Vaughn as Mississippi’s first Black lieutenant governor. Billed as a series in which Vaughn’s Antoinette Dunkerson must “manage her zany family” and “overcome a boss who’s stuck in the past,” She the People‘s first season includes eight half-hour episodes that are out now and another eight that are set to debut in August. Here are the highs and lows you can expect to enjoy (or not) in the first batch of episodes.
1. The lead is great
Vaughn is a TV veteran of The Steve Harvey Show and she provides a steady hand at the wheel for this kooky sitcom world. She makes Antoinette earnest and intelligent, but also relatably overwhelmed, too—whether she’s trying to parent the two teenagers she shares with her ex-husband or pumping herself up by reciting the lyrics to Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman.”
2. The production values are questionable
Perry is known for his quick, cheaply made productions, and that definitely shows here. The aesthetics of the series look like a cross between a Hallmark Christmas movie and Rebecca Black’s “Friday” music video.
3. The comedy is broad
“We was on the stripper pole and—and we came to come vote!” enthuses one woman-on-the-street interviewee after a video of Antoinette passionately pulling her daughter from a party goes viral. As ever, Perry is happy to lean into broad tropes in his comedy, from Antoinette’s weed-smoking, tough-talking mom Cleo (Jo Marie Payton) to her flashy driver Basil (Dyon Brooks).
But there are some cleverer moments, too. After meeting the governor’s perky white assistant, Antoinette’s cousin Shamika (an endearing Jade Novah) whispers, “She’s got that ‘I’ll put some s— in your tea and take you to the Sunken Place’ smile.”
Perry and co-creator Niya Palmer seem to be trying to appeal to as many comedic sensibilities as possible at once, which makes the show a bit all-over-the-place. But it tends to be funniest when it’s zeroing in on how Antoinette has to code-switch between her Black community and the white world of gubernatorial politics.
4. The politics are genuinely fascinating
Mississippi is one of 18 states where the governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately, which means they can come from different parties. That election quirk makes for a fascinating political set-up. Antoinette is a Democrat who was elected by the predominantly Black population in Jackson, while Governor Harper (Robert Craighead) is a smarmy “Good ol’ boy” Republican with a white rural base.
Once in office, Antoinette has to figure out how to walk an impossible political line while still getting at least some of her agenda through. True, the show stays more in feel-good family sitcom mode than searing political satire and Antoinette comes across a little naïve for a Harvard Law graduate community organizer, but the tenuous cross-party alliance is still a strong, original premise for a political series.
5. There’s a welcome touch of absurdism
While the first two episodes basically play out as you might expect, the show finds a welcome new comedic tone in its third episode, as Antoinette and her family move into a lieutenant governor’s mansion that may or may not be a literal plantation.
From the Confederate flag rug and throw pillows to a butler who seems like he stepped out of the 1800s, it’s a hilariously absurdist riff on the horrors of how Southern America “honors” its history.
Though the back half of the season gets a little bogged down in a storyline about Antoinette trying to move a pipeline that’s set to run through several impoverished communities, there’s a general sense that the show wants to continue to grow and evolve, both comedically and dramatically. That’s a quality that will serve the series well as it moves into its second term later this summer.
The post The 5 Reasons to Watch Tyler Perry’s New Netflix Show ‘She the People’ appeared first on The Daily Beast.
