Summary
Episode 17 is pretty late in the season for Poppa’s House to summon something resembling genuine sincerity, but here we are.
Who’d have thought it? A half-hour of Poppa’s House that I genuinely enjoyed! And it only took 17 episodes for us to get here. “Babygirl”, despite a distressing lack of Ivy involvement, works on a few different levels, namely by being another Wayans family affair but also by peddling something resembling genuine sincerity. The slapstick-y gimmicks are still there to some extent, but they’re in service of broader points instead of being present for their own sake.
The hook is that Junior’s sister, Natalie, is visiting. Natalie is played by Amara Wayans, who is Damon Wayans Jr’s daughter, not his sister, but it’s close enough. And besides, her most impactful scenes are with Poppa. They have an estranged relationship after the breakup of their parents, which she blames him for. Poppa cheating on Catherine has given Natalie lifelong daddy issues, which is a problem since she’s on the cusp of getting married to her long-time on-again-off-again fiancé, Dyrrl (Tre Hale).
Since Natalie won’t engage with Poppa, it’s up to Junior to do the classic intimidation routine, which backfires immediately when Dyrrl is revealed to be a giant, intimidating guy who eats footlong sandwiches with no bites and did a two-year stretch on Riker’s Island (for “something he didn’t do”, which turns out to be “run fast enough.” I will confess to having laughed at this silly joke.)
Meanwhile, Poppa explains his relationship with Natalie and his regrets about it to Ivy, who only appears in this one scene, which is a shame. “Babygirl”, the episode’s title, was his pet name for her. We know there’s a reconciliation coming, but aren’t sure precisely what form it’ll take.
Eventually, Natalie is compelled to visit Poppa, but while he’s sincere, she won’t budge on the issue until he apologizes to Catherine, which Poppa won’t do. This leads to Catherine cameoing for a single scene, wherein it becomes clear that she was the one who cheated first, and Poppa essentially martyred himself reputationally to protect her. She decides the right thing to do is to tell Natalie the truth, and this leads to that reconciliation. Poppa even gets to give Dyrrl the intimidation routine, which he helpfully pretends to fall for.
The reason all this works is that, ironically for a sitcom, it’s played almost completely straight. The issues in Poppa’s House Episode 17 aren’t outlandish and ridiculous — they’re very relatable family squabbles that most of us have experienced some variation of. And they’re not resolved through slapstick-y nonsense, but through honesty and communication, which everyone could stand to be better at. This is exactly the mode that a sitcom about family should be operating in, and as if to prove that, “Babygirl” is also more earnestly funny than most of the previous episodes, without the need to dress Junior up in a silly outfit or whatever.
Sure, I can lament the underuse of Ivy, especially since I still think she and Poppa’s relationship is at the core of the show, but that’s a minor complaint (for once.) It’s just a shame that the show waited until it was almost over to become watchable.
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