‘Black-ish’ Season 4, Episode 9 Recap: Dre Struggles with Diabetes, Jack Thinks Devante Hates Him
The black-ish season finale flipped the scrip, and told the story of the ghost of Christmas future instead of Christmas past while tackling a major plight in the Black community— diabetes.
Following black-ish tradition, Dre opens the show with his informative monologue— this time addressing statistics surrounding diabetes and the Black community. He's concerned about the effects of the disease because he's just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Scared about what may happen to him, Dre tells Bow to get all the information about what he needs to do, then walks out of the doctor's office after hearing the news. Bow's intrigued and excited about Dre's diagnosis because it takes her back to her med school days where she gets to learn how to treat patients all over again.
As usual, Dre turns to his office conference room cohorts for support, but as usual, he receives nothing but stereotypical responses like, "I already thought you had [Diabetes] because you know, your skin color." Since Mr. Stevens, Charlie, Josh and Connor are no help, Dre's left to fend for himself.
Bow tries to help Dre by attempting to show him how to prick his finger and check his blood sugar levels, but he tells her he wants to handle this alone. While trying to decipher how to properly prick his finger, Pops comes in and tells Dre there's a cure to diabetes. Pops shows Dre a documentary on diabetes with a 56% rotten tomatoes rating that says fasting for two days will help realign his immune system and heal him of all illness. So, Dre decides to embark on a liquid-only diet while he fasts to clean out his system.
Dre attends his holiday office party starving, sweating and on the verge of passing out, but that doesn't deter him from staying committed to the cause of fasting. Bow arrives at the party looking absolutely fabulous, and tries to catch Dre before he faints. Unfortunately, she didn't stand a chance. Dre crashes into a champagne glass mound and Josh freaks out—not because he's concerned about Dre, but because he's concerned about his grandpapa's antique champagne glasses. Thankfully, Dre fell into the generic glasses instead of Josh's family heirlooms. But Connor, who's high as a kite off who-knows-what, goes in for the kill and smashes the antique champagne mound while begging anyone in the room to kiss him.
So much for those family memories.
After passing out and learning that avoiding his diabetes treatment can kill him, Dre goes to sleep and has a dream about what life would be like if he died. He gets a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future, and finds out that Rick Fox becomes the kids' new daddy after he passes away. And everyone, including Bow, is so happy Dre died because now they have "new daddy" to show them real love. Damn, cold world.
Dre wakes up screaming and tells Bow he's going to take his medicine and asks for her help. Excitedly, she agrees, and encourages Dre, declaring, "Diabetes is not gonna dia-beat-us!" She had jokes for days.
Meanwhile, Jack is convinced that six-month-old Devante hates him, and thus, is out to get him. He takes his concerns to Junior and Diane, and together they gather Devante and give Jack a chance to win over their little brother. Jack dances, he tries to make him laugh, but nothing works. So Junior sits Jack down and tells him he has to build a scar on his heart so Devante's actions won't affect him.
Diane sits down with Jack and Junior, and prepares her twin brother for the meanest, toughest, most hurtful commentary that could ever be said as a means of toughening him up so he can take on Devante. Once Jack masters Diane's cruel code of conduct, he finally goes to confront his baby brother when Bow asks Jack to keep an eye on Devante. Jack's words to Devante went a little something like this: "You can hate me all you want but you're stuck with me because I love you." Done with trying to win Devante over, Jack storms out the room only to trip and fall on his face— and finally, Devante laughs.
Jack realizes Devante enjoys watching him trip and fall, so he does it again and again. Junior sees what's going on and congratulates Jack on being patient with Devante only to realize that "the hate" Devante had for Jack has now been transferred to him.
We can't wait to see how this story plays out, but we have to wait until 2018 to do so.
Happy holidays!