Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show: Do men even know how to treat men?
The Max show is a perfect blend of dating woes, online dating no's and what family knows
I can’t remember what I said on Twitter in 2017. I just remember it was something negative about me not liking NBC’s “The Carmichael Show.” A former boss, who reminded me way too much of Michael Scott (“The Office”), loved the show. That made me not want to watch it even more. But what finally made me give it another shot was the most backwards way to watch a show. On Jerrod Carmichael’s official Twitter account (at the time, I’m not on Twitter/X so I have no clue if he still is), he liked my grumpy tweet about his show. Who does that?
Him liking my comment while I was insulting his show made me sit back, reconsider the three-season sitcom and press play on Episode 1 again. Judging from his new Max reality show “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,” I can only guess that constructive criticism (or maybe naysayers) inspire him. All I know is I watched the same exact episode I’d watched before, temporarily set aside my Bill Cosby defense mode and realized I loved the show. The script, the cast and the episodes didn’t change. My mindset watching it did. I was able to enjoy it in a different way — solely off of him (oddly) finding and liking my hater tweet.
From comedy to reality
This time around, I didn’t need Jerrod Carmichael’s help to enjoy his Max reality show. It’s like the black, gay, male version of “Sex and the City.” I found out about it two weeks ago and went straight down the list. This Max show is a fascinating and frustrating mix of scenarios: painfully annoying “friends” who seem way too comfortable spending his money (and slurping on drinks hard enough to make me grind my teeth); awkwardly homophobic jokes (how does flying a kite in the Windy City look “gay”?); cringeworthy comedy from aspiring comedians (the Spiderman poop joke made me hide in my own shirt like a turtle); and parental arguments that were tougher to watch than the baby scene in “Them.” (If you have never seen the baby scene, just take my word for it. Never EVER watch it.)
Even without the fart-in-a-closet, dinner-over-friendship scene with Tyler, the Creator, the biggest lesson I’m learning from Jerrod Carmichael’s show is that some men not only don’t know how to treat a “good woman.” They don’t know how to treat a “good man” either!