The New Black is the 10th episode of season 4 and series finale of The Boondocks. It aired on June 23, 2014.
Plot[]
Riley Freeman is targeted after using a homophobic slur (the word "gay") at a kid dancing, which becomes viral, then Robert and Rollo Goodlove tell the protesters that Riley uses "gay" against something he doesn't like because he has special needs.
Continuity[]
- This marks the return of Rollo Goodlove.
- This is the second time Riley Freeman has been on the media for school issues. (This time, however, Riley is the perpetuator, not the victim.)
- The song "Stomp 'em in the nuts" by Thugnificent is played when Riley is beaten up by the special children.
Cultural references[]
- This episode covers the changing attitudes towards homophobia over the course of the show, which first aired in 2005, and this episode airing in 2014.
- Philbert Slowlove was voiced by the late Tommy "Tiny" Lister, the actor who played Debo from the movie Friday and his character design is similar to that of Debo.
- Ellen Degeneres' show is shown.
- Ruckus mentions RuPaul and Average White Band. He mentions Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile, Cuba Gooding Jr. in Radio and Quinton Aaron in The Blind Side as black actors who played mentally handicapped characters.
- Rollo mentions Trayvon Martin.
Reviews[]
- (Warning: Bias) The A.V. Club gave the episode an "F" grade. More than anything else, though, “The New Black” is just deeply, profoundly unfunny. There is nothing interesting here. At all. There’s nothing remotely worthy of a laugh (or anything that even sounds like it’s supposed to be a joke). It’s horribly boring, painful to watch, and again there’s no real ending, which means there’s also no conclusion to the Freeman’s money issues. Sticking the landing on that season-long story wouldn’t have retroactively saved all that time-wasting crap, but it would have made it feel like all of those earlier episodes were building to something, a payoff that might have actually made some of this season worth it. As it stands, there were a bunch of episodes about Robert losing all of his money, and then nothing. So the show’s experiment with seriality is also a definitive, unfunny failure.
- Although there are those that find the episode distasteful, the comedic treatment of a particularly sensitive issue, did have comedic value to others. That the show presented a struggle within the black community to align themselves with a cause that many African Americans believe has overshadowed their own struggles to achieve equality in, what they believe to be, a particularly racist and abusive culture, was appealing. This episode helped to highlight the need to acknowledge the true nature of “struggle” and recognize the real meaning of disenfranchisement.