Stream It Or Skip It: ‘UnPrisoned’ Season 2 On Hulu, Where Kerry Washington Is A Therapist Dealing With Her Ex-Con Dad, Anxious Son And Sputtering Love Life

Because she’s been in so many dramas of late, especially heavy ones like Little Fires Everywhere , we tend to forget that Kerry Washington was in a decent number of comedic roles early in her career. That’s why, when we watched the first season of the Onyx Collective series UnPrisoned , we were pleasantly surprised at how good of a comedic actor she was. Her fine performance, and the great chemistry she has with co-star Delroy Lindo, continues in Season 2.

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Opening Shot: Paige Alexander (Kerry Washington) is standing outside a TV studio, telling her social media followers on a livestream that she’s going on a local morning show.

The Gist: On that show, she talks about her fraught relationship with her father, Edwin (Delroy Lindo), who moved in with her after a 17 year stint in federal prison, but recently moved out after getting arrested again while giving his grandson Finn (Faly Rakotohavana) driving lessons. It was the subject of a TED talk that recently went viral.

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She says she’s learned that you can’t change someone’s behavior, but the therapist she’s paneling with, Murphy Collins (John Stamos), tells her that she needs to change how she reacts to that person rather than isolate herself. She ends up getting flummoxed by Murphy’s assertions, and tells her friend Esti (Jee Young Han) that she’s getting cancellations because of it. Esti wants to know “where in the actual fuck is your dad?”

Finn gets into a minor car accident and Edwin, who hasn’t seen him since he moved out, gets the call from his grandson. Edwin brings along is sometimes-squeeze Nadine (Branda Strong), since they were having a drink at the time. Paige is told to meet them at the hospital, and is annoyed that Nadine is there; it’s the first time she’s seen her father since he moved out.

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Paige goes to where she thinks Edwin is living, with the guys he used to run drugs with, and finds out he’s not there. In talking with Mal (Marque Richardson), his parole officer, Edwin realizes that he may be as much of a support than the burden he thinks he is. He asks Paige to meet him, and she suggests family therapy for the three of them. He agrees to it if he can pick the therapist: Murphy Collins.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? We said this before Season 1 and we still think this is true: UnPrisoned is a combination of Insecure and a “going home again” kind of story like we saw in Somebody Somewhere .

Our Take: While the first season of UnPrisoned , created by Tracy McMillan based on her own experiences with her father, dealt mainly with Paige’s discomfort for having Edwin living with her and her son Finn after being in and out of her life so much, the second season is more settled. Yes, it starts with Edwin trying to make it on his own and thinking he’s a burden to Paige and Finn, but it’s not much of a spoiler to say that by the second episode he’s back in the house with his daughter and grandson. And all of them are trying to deal with their stuff.

We were a little surprised to see Stamos in the first scene, and we had a feeling that he wasn’t just there to make a one-scene appearance. So when Paige finds herself in Murphy’s office with Edwin and Finn, we were pleasantly surprised by how well Stamos fit into this ensemble as a very unconventional therapist.

Suffice to say, the only realistic therapy sessions we’ve seen on TV are on the show Couples Therapy , so we shouldn’t get annoyed at how much of a buttinsky Stamos’ character is. He’s there to help all three Alexanders shake themselves out of their comfort zones in order to find a more effective way of dealing with life and each other. And in the first two episodes, Washington’s flustered reactions to Murphy’s insane methods were fun to watch.

We said this last year and we’ll say it again this year: Washington’s comedic chops are really underrated. The way she stammers and flinches in reaction to what others are doing is reminiscent of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and she really makes Paige into a character that has been able to power through whatever setbacks she’s faced through her life. Paige often puts on a facade that belies her lack of self-confidence, but it’s a very believable facade. And, as we see in the second episode, when Edwin encourages her to think like a cat when dating, Washington can slip from anxious to hard-to-get in a nanosecond.

Edwin is going to go to work at the halfway house he was in after his 17-year federal stint, so we’ll see more of Mal. We get the feeling the romantic feelings between Mal and Paige aren’t done, but Edwin’s new job is going to make an already complicated situation even more so. Still, it’ll be fun to see the two of them try to resist the pull they have towards each other.

Sex and Skin: None in the first two episodes, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see any at some point.

Parting Shot: After a disastrous first session with Murphy, a talk with Finn persuades Paige to go to the hotel where Edwin is and ask him to move back in.

Sleeper Star: Stamos is definitely a good addition to the mix in this cast. We also appreciate Strong as Edwin’s longtime on-again-off-again squeeze Nadine, who raised Paige during one of his prison stints when he was a kid. Finally, there’s Jordyn McIntosh as 10-year-old Paige, who doesn’t pop up as often as she did in Season 1, but when she does, it’s still very funny.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jay Jackson plays one of the morning show hosts in the first scene. He’s played news anchors for years, probably because he used to be one . But after playing Perd Hapley on Parks And Recreation for all those years, it’s strange seeing him in similar roles.

Our Call: STREAM IT. UnPrisoned is a funny show that deals with some pretty heavy generational issues, and while it still rides on the fantastic chemistry between Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo, the rest of the cast is getting some meaty material, as well.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

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