BLACK CHARACTERS I LOVED IN 2020 (LIVE ACTION EDITION)
Welcome to the final installment of the Black Characters I Loved in 2020 series. If you’ve been tuned in for all three installments, just know I really rock with you! If you haven’t peeped all three, well then what you waiting for?? Go check those out.
For this last one, I’ll be looking at Black characters from the live-action shows This Us and I May Destroy You. Truly some great shows, and if you haven’t watched one or the other I would highly recommend them. But with no further ado, Lets get to it.
Randall Pearson (played by Sterling K. Brown) — This Is Us, seasons 4 and 5
This Is Us? More like This is Randall. This Is Us is one of my favorite dramas out there and that’s been even more the case as they’ve started to focus more on Randall’s story in the last couple of seasons and giving us more answers to his past. Randall definitely picked up some smooth-talking skills and grand gesture ability from his foster father, Jack (played by Milo Ventimiglia). Randall’s a great father and a great husband and is yet another corny dad that I aspire to be. Randall has always been the glue of the Pearson family and has given way more of himself to everyone else than he should, and I think he’s finally realizing that for himself.
In the 2020 episodes of Season 4, we see Randall go through a lot. His concerns about his foster mother, Rebecca (played by Mandy Moore), seem to be warranted as Rebecca is shown to have mild cognitive impairment. The only ones to know about this are Rebecca, Randall, and Miguel. Rebecca swears them to secrecy, so Randall has to keep this big news from his siblings Kate (played by Chrissy Metz) and Kevin (played by Justin Hartley), which definitely weighs on him. Then, Randall is faced with a break-in at his house as he runs into the robber in the downstairs area of his home. It’s later revealed that the robber had even made his way to Randall and Beth’s room and took some jewelry. This, of course, raises Randall’s anxiety and stress levels through the roof. Randall then gets into an argument with Kevin at their childhood cabin after he lets it slip that Rebecca has mild cognitive impairment.
It’s after all this, and after some suggestion from Darnell and Randall’s siblings, that Randall finally takes the step of seeking therapy. I really loved this for Randall’s character because he had avoided seeking therapy for so long, even though it was clear he really needed someone to talk through his issues with. Avoiding therapy is something that's certainly evident in the Black community, but something that I’ve seen being addressed more in recent times. Randall needed therapy for a medley of things that had been going on in his life and it’s great to see him be able to talk it out with someone instead of relying on running as his outlet. The first therapist Randall has is great for helping him to realize the issues that he has that stems from his relationship with Rebecca, and she also helps point out that Randall has this need to be a hero for his family.
In the season finale of season 4, Kevin and Randall get into a huge fight that started after it was divulged that Randall basically coerced Rebecca into the clinical trial in St. Louis. The two of them say some pretty hurtful stuff. They both had some pretty low blows but when Kevin told Randall that the worst thing that ever happened to him was the day that Jack and Rebecca brought Randall home, that shit cut me deep.
When the show returned for season 5, they began to hit on the things that were going on in the real world during their hiatus, such as protests for the murders of innocent Black lives at the hand of police brutality and the spread of COVID-19. What I liked about them inserting these topics was that it made them have to delve more into Randall’s Blackness and look more at what it meant for him to be Black growing up with an all-white family. Of course, they had hit on this beforehand, as well, but I feel like they didn’t really delve into it like they could and would often walk off with the Pearson’s somehow getting everything right in the end. However, in this season, we see Randall begin to speak out about the things that weren’t addressed in regard to him being a Black child navigating the world, especially in a mostly white setting. Randall even calls out Kate on her misguided apology for what’s going on in the country and her, as well as the rest of the family’s, lack of response when similar things have been going on Randall’s whole life.
Randall also gets himself a Black, male, therapist. I LOVE IT! I remember in college I had gone through two counselors, one was white, the other Black. The difference it makes having a Black therapist is immeasurable. It takes some of the weight off your shoulders in getting past that initial anxiety with opening up and it frees you to talk about things that they’re more likely to understand and relate to as well, so I really enjoyed seeing that for Randall. We also get to see Randall and Malik form a closer bond this season as Randall takes Malik in for an internship. I love the relationship these two have. It’s like Malik is the son Randall has yet to have.
And where we’re at now is Randall finally getting to know who his birth mother was and learning even more about his background. It had turned out that Randall’s mother, Laurel Dubois, had not died of an overdose as William thought. Hearing the news, of course, Randall was distraught, thinking that his mother had been alive all this time and didn’t care enough to even look for him. But, after talking with and traveling to see Hai Lang, Laurel’s love interest before she met William, Randall learned the truth. Hai Lang informed Randall that Laurel had died of breast cancer in 2015. He also told Randall that, when Laurel had regained consciousness and been treated in the hospital back when she had overdosed, she was then sent off to prison in California for five years for drug possession.
After everything that happened, when she got out, Laurel felt that she no longer had the right to be Randall’s mother and returned back to New Orleans where she was originally from. Hai Lang goes on to tell Randall more about Laurel’s life growing up, her life after getting out of prison, and the immense amount of love that she had for Randall. This was big for Randall because, as his therapist had pointed out, knowing where he comes from is a big thing for Randall. Getting this closure on his mother I think really filled in a big piece for Randall.
Seeing everything come together for Randall just warms my heart. My guy deserves the world and I love to see him looking out for himself more and getting the answers that he’s longed for. Randall and Beth are like 90% of why I stay tuned in to This Is Us (the other 10% is for tips on spontaneous date ideas and how to smooth talk my future wife).
Arabella (played by Michaela Coel) — I May Destroy You, season 1
*CONTENT WARNING: MENTION OF RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT*
I May Destroy You is a fantastically well-done series that chronicles the impact of sexual assault and sexual violence and the different ways that sexual violence occurs. Michaela Coel not only stars as the lead in this drama series, but she is also the creator, writer, and co-director. The series is also based on Coel’s own experience with sexual assault that she went through while writing “Chewing Gum,” her first series. Throughout the show, many characters are subjected to sexual assault in one way or another, and different coping mechanisms for dealing with such a traumatic experience are depicted. I May Destroy You also touches on gaslighting and victim-blaming, the incompetence of police when dealing with matters of sexual assault, bystander apathy, what proper consent looks like, and the role that friends play in safely or unsafely assisting their friends in situations that have gone awry.
The series follows Arabella as she is trying to write a book for a publication. Arabella goes out one night to have some drinks with some friends in an attempt to shake the funk that she’s in with her writing. As Arabella is out having drinks, her drink eventually gets spiked and, the next thing Arabella knows, she’s back at the publication’s studio working on the book, presumably while still under the effects of the alcohol and the drug that was slipped into her drink. When Arabella is finally on her way back home the next morning, she has the image flash in her head of some guy over her thrusting against her body. During the time that Arabella was drugged and incapacitated, she was dragged into the bathroom of the bar and was raped by the person that gave her and her friends drinks, but all of these details are unbeknownst to Arabella. The entire situation is a blur to Arabella, and she spends most of the series trying to piece together the events of that night through the flashbacks that come in spurts to her.
One of the reasons I loved Arabella, and why she was one of my favorite characters of 2020, is because Michaela Coel completely BODIED this role. The execution was a 10/10 in my book, and she deserves all the flowers for that shit. Another reason I loved Coel’s character is that she hit on the nuances that there are in reacting to being a victim of sexual assault. There is no monolith when it comes to reacting to, healing from, coping with, and moving past instances of sexual assault. It won’t look the same for everyone. Arabella’s character also makes it clear that victims may not find their perfect way of dealing with what happened with them right away, and it may take some time to find what works personally. Arabella also showed to not be perfect herself and I thought that was made evident at the party for Terry (played by Weruche Opia). At this party, there’s a guy that seems to be interested in Kwame (played by Paapa Essiedu), but Kwame isn’t interested in really talking to or hooking up with anyone at the moment because he was recently the victim of sexual assault at the hands of a guy that he met on a dating app. However, he hadn’t disclosed this info to Terry and Arabella at the time.
Arabella wound up tricking the guy that was interested in Kwame into the same room as Kwame and then locked the two of them in there together. Although nothing happened between the two, this was still evidently a very traumatizing and stressful situation for Kwame. And even though Arabella didn't know of Kwame’s previous sexual assault, it’s still an unsafe situation to lock your friend in a room with a stranger and then go away.
The last episode of this series is definitely one of my favorite episodes of any series from 2020. In the season (probably series) finale, “Ego Death,” we see Arabella going back to the bar where she was drugged and raped, which she had apparently been doing for some time. This time, Arabella sees the person that raped her, David (played by Lewis Reeves), and all of the memories from that night come rushing back to her. From here, we’re faced with four possible scenarios that Arabella may take, although you don’t know the first scenario is fabricated until it concludes and starts back over with Arabella back at the bar seeing her rapist.
The first scenario is revenge. Arabella cooks up a plan, with the help of Terry and Theo, to get David drugged in the same way he drugged her. With David in a drugged up stupor, the women run back into him on the street as Arabella needs to get her panties from him to alleviate any evidence. David passes out and Arabella, face-to-face with her abuser, lashes out and repeatedly punches David in the face while Theo is choking him to keep him passed out. Eventually, David dies from the combo of blows and being choked, and Arabella takes his body home and hides it underneath her bed.
The second scenario ends up focusing on sympathy. In this rendition, we see Arabella trying to have David drug her again, but this time with the intention of having the police arrive to catch him. It’s Terry’s idea to get Arabella super high off of a ton of cocaine to offset the effects of the drug that David’s going to use. Once David gets Arabella back to the bathroom, under the impression that she’s incapacitated, Arabella reveals that she is not under the effect of the drug. David then tries to retake his control as the aggressor and tries to belittle the assault he’s committed by saying that there are wars and homeless people out there, so Arabella doesn’t have it bad. David then starts breaking down and belittling his own self-worth. Moved by David’s display of emotion there at the end, Arabella takes David back to her place before the police show up. Back at Arabella’s place David and Arabella are having a heart to heart and David discusses the many types of rape that he has committed previously and says that he doesn’t understand why she’s not afraid. David also goes on to question why he should even be allowed into Arabella’s room or to sit on her bed. The police eventually arrive and drag David out as he cries for Arabella to stay by his side.
The third scenario is one about initiating consensual sex with David. In this version, Arabella initiates a conversation with David. During their convo, Arabella whispers something in David’s ear and he proceeds to follow her to the bathroom where they make out. The two then end up back at Arabella’s place where they have a night of consensual sex. In the morning, David says, innocently and in a soft voice, that he won’t leave unless Arabella wants him to. Arabella then asks David to leave, and he gets up and walks out, naked, followed by the dead David that had laid underneath Arabella’s bed.
In the fourth, and final scene we see Arabella simply elect not to go to the bar at all. Instead, she stays in with her friend, Ben, and says that she’s not going back to the bar.
In Salamishah Tillet’s piece for the New York Times, she discusses the presentation of many alternate endings in this episode, saying,
“By offering multifaceted endings, Coel gives victims of sexual assault, particularly Black women who have survived rape, some of the most radical and cathartic moments of television I have ever witnessed.”
Tillet then goes on to say,
“Through a brilliant series of undoings and re-doings, she covered the range of possibilities that many of us survivors privately explore in our journals, in therapy and in our imaginations, our striving to approximate some semblance of justice when the law and our communities fail to protect us.”
I think this ending is a very powerful piece and, once again, showcases the nuances in responding to sexual assault. I May Destroy You did a lot of things right, in my opinion, in covering this topic. I think the show fosters a much-needed conversation on rape culture and the ways in which it is continually carried out. I certainly look forward to more work from Coel, cause she simply just doesn’t miss.
