UnPrisoned (TV Program)

Subterms

    Latest story

    88 Shares99 Views

    ‘UnPrisoned’ Review: Kerry Washington Handles Comedy, Too

    by

    The star of “Scandal” demonstrates her range in the Hulu series about an ex-con’s daughter and her relatable traumas.Paige Alexander, the high-maintenance mom played by Kerry Washington in the Hulu dramedy “UnPrisoned,” puts her family and friends through a lot. She’s also a challenge for the show’s captioners: Rendering her continual nervous laughter, which punctuates the soundtrack like the sputtering of a rusty muffler, calls for creativity. In Season 1, (laughs), (laughter) and (laughing) were supplemented with (snickers), (snorts), (chuckles), (chuckles awkwardly) and other descriptors of uncomfortable mirth.That Paige is a marriage and family counselor and also a jittery basket case is the comic framework of “UnPrisoned,” which returned with a new season on Wednesday. The therapist needs therapy, and she gets it from everyone: her father the ex-convict; her son the anxiety-ridden gamer; her foster sister the libidinous real estate agent; and even, in Season 2, her therapist, a self-absorbed but helpful showboat played by John Stamos.Running in parallel, and neatly explaining Paige’s problems, is the dramatic framework, in which Paige and her dad try warily to reconcile after his latest stay in prison, a 17-year stretch. His repeated absences from her life are the reason she is a reflexively negative, critical and untrusting control freak who dates only unattainable men. He’s in his 60s and suddenly has to grow up; she’s in her 40s and still has to get over her daddy issues.Created by the television writer and relationship maven Tracy McMillan, “UnPrisoned,” which is based on McMillan’s life, is a better-than-average family comedy-drama, deft and ordinary in equal measure. Its quick half-hour episodes weave clever, familiar relationship humor with poignant reflections on the consequences of incarceration.The material is what it is: worthwhile, but not too far north of pleasantly watchable. “UnPrisoned” can be hard to click away from, though, because Kerry Washington is such a quietly vivid, thoroughly alive presence at its center. Whether or not you buy what the show is selling, you don’t for a second doubt the realness, the ineluctable authenticity, of Paige Alexander, even as she’s driving you crazy.Washington received plenty of attention, and two Emmy nominations, for her career-making run as Olivia Pope on ABC’s “Scandal.” But her talent and magnetism still tended to become a little lost amid the Shonda Rhimes circus, overshadowed by costumes, melodrama and take-no-prisoners attitude.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      ‘UnPrisoned’ Depicts the Burden of Incarceration With a Light Touch

      by

      Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington discuss their series, which finds humor and struggle in a father and daughter repairing their relationship after a long prison term.“UnPrisoned” on Hulu is the rare show to focus on the aftermath of incarceration and its ongoing effects on families rather than on imprisonment itself.Created by Tracy McMillan and loosely based on her 2011 memoir, “I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway,” the series stars Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington as Edwin and Paige, a father and daughter trying to repair their relationship when Edwin comes back into Paige’s life after serving 17 years in prison.The first season explored the emotional injury that Edwin’s long absence inflicted upon Paige, an avid Instagrammer, therapist and single mother who struggles with a string of unhealthy romantic partners. Season 2, premiering Wednesday, delves deeper into how the issues of abandonment, anxiety and mistrust have been passed down through three generations, and it depicts the hard work it takes for the family to break the trauma cycle and begin to heal.Though the show spotlights a serious societal problem — mass incarceration — it does so with a light touch, finding humor as well as difficulty in the challenges of re-entry. Such nuance is what drew both Lindo and Washington to this story about, as Lindo put it, “the problems of families that have been decimated by the penal system and their trying to reconnect.”“Shining light on that process and on one individual who has been imprisoned for as long as my character was, while also doing it somewhat comedically, was genuinely very, very interesting to me,” he said.Washington helped develop “UnPrisoned” through her production company, Simpson Street. She said Lindo was her only choice for Edwin because she needed someone who could handle the comedy while also being able to convey the complexity and charisma of McMillan’s father, who inspired the character.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More