'black-ish' fan recap: The Johnsons' big, fat, legally binding wedding

The latest episode of black-ish introduces Rainbow’s bougie mom, Alicia. Alicia is the classic stereotype a lot of black people talk about and many dread: a black woman who thinks she’s above other black people because she married a white man. A white man with a black fetish.

Yes, I called out Rainbow’s dad, Paul, too—he’s the stereotype of the white dude who thinks he’s gotten cool points for marrying a black woman. Sorry, Rainbow’s parents. I love interracial relationships, but Alicia and Paul are too stereotypical to be liked. Thankfully, though, they’re just annoying when you don’t count the racial politics.

So why are Rainbow’s parents here, anyway? Because Andre is getting ready to renew his vows to Rainbow, and he wants it to be as perfect as possible. The actual wedding was held in between her shifts at the hospital, so it wasn’t very romantic. But for the vow renewal to be absolutely perfect, Rainbow’s parents will be there to ruin it. Her parents don’t get along with Dre’s parents (who are more old-school), and every time they’re in a room, it’s a verbal sparring match.

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Maybe it’s because I’m from the South and I have some old-school tendencies myself, but I’m not on Rainbow’s parents’ side. I mean, like Alicia, I too think that the Bible is one of many paths toward spiritual peace, but I also don’t eat bulgur kernels on a regular basis. I’d eat fried chicken over bulgur any day. I also don’t belong to a cult, like it appears Alicia does. (More on this later.)

The bottom line is that Rainbow’s parents and Andre’s parents hate each other so much that when Alicia asserts that everything, including manmade objects, has a soul, Ruby retorts with a well-placed, highly aggravated "f— you!" Funniest moment of the episode.

Also, just because Andre’s got black parents, Paul feels the need to bring up Selma as if that’s the only film they might have seen this year? Therefore, I cheered on Pops and Ruby, who say they saw that stuff firsthand while Paul still got to sit at a lunch counter without harassment.

Things get even worse when Andre Jr. comes across the website to Alicia’s "church." Everyone sees the FBI notice on the site, revealing that Alicia belonged not to a new-age group but to an illegal cult. This also means that the wedding Alicia officiated for Rainbow and Andre was never legally binding.

By this time, Rainbow and Andre are so sick of their parents that they decide to go through with the wedding without them. They plan to just get married at the courthouse with their kids as their wedding party. But because Jack can’t keep a secret, Pops finds out about the plan and goes to Alicia to try to extend an olive branch. Even though they can’t get along, they have to work together for the sake of their kids’ happiness.

The realization that they drove Andre and Rainbow to elopement spurs the parents to act like civil human beings, and thankfully, the wedding (including Bishop Don "Magic" Juan, Tibetan monks, and the bishop’s lady friends—whom Black Fetish Paul loved looking at) goes off without a hitch.

If there is a hitch in anything afterward, it was the question of whether Zoey is actually Andre’s daughter. The running joke throughout the episode is that Zoey is actually the daughter of Rainbow and Rick Fox, since Rainbow and Andre weren’t married until after Zoey was born.

Andre Jr. has a field day making fun of Zoey’s conception until they realize their parents’ marriage was never legal to begin with—making them all kids of unmarried people. But even after the wedding, Andre Jr. still insists that he, Jack, and Diane are Rainbow and Andre’s children, but Zoey looks too much like Rick Fox. Andre tries to rebut that claim, but Rainbow doesn’t offer any help—and she never cops to notmeeting Rick Fox.

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