The Scope: THEM
Show Discipline Black Films
Hello, my Scopian’s. Welcome back to The Scope’s monthly movie review! Except, this month I am not reviewing a movie. I will be reviewing Amazon’s newest original series: THEM, created by Little Marvin and produced by the well-known Lena Waithe.
THEM is a drama thriller about a black family of 4 who moves to an all-white neighborhood in Compton, California in the 50s. Upon doing so, they deal with a lot of backlash from the neighbors and they deal with a lot of personal demons of their own.
My Scopian’s should know by now, I'm not too hard to please. But I am not going to lie, I had mixed feelings about this series. For one, it gave off a Jordan Peele vibe, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that considering Jordan Peele was not involved at all. One thing I did enjoy for a fact was the acting. I saw a few new faces that I hope to see again such as Ashley Thomas who plays the role of Henry Emory, Melody Heard as Gracie Emory, Shahadi Joseph (who is actually known for role in Jordan Peele’s “Us”) as Ruby Emory and my favorite the GORGEOUS Deborah Ayorinde as Lucky Emory.
Now, I’m not here to give any spoilers so I won’t. THEM definitely started off strong. It had a lot of promise and I was very interested to see what they were going to give us. It began with The Emory’s on a road trip moving from South Carolina to California. Henry Emory had nailed a great job doing IT (which was very rare for that time period considering he is a black man) and he was eager to start a new life for his family. They were a beautiful happy family excited for the future, but they had no idea what would happen to them within the next couple of weeks to come. From the moment the Emory’s approach their new home, things immediately start to go left. The neighbors weren’t happy. There was one lady who despised the Emory’s more than the other neighbors: Elizabeth (Alison Pill). She was not going to let up until they left her neighborhood and would go to extreme lengths to make sure of it.
There were a couple of scenes in the show that I could not watch at all, 2 scenes specifically that I skipped through. All of which was the reality for African Americans in that time period, and it was absolutely sad and disgusting to witness and to even think about what we had to endure, and it was very important for us to get a bit of a history lesson to see some of the shit they did to us. I for one just couldn’t sit through a couple of those scenes just for my own emotional well-being, and I think that’s okay.
Overall I think THEM is a good watch. I recommend it! Very entertaining, the acting was phenomenal, and it had a good storyline. However, it did tend to be a little confusing despite the fact that I understood everything that was happening, including all of the symbolism. It all felt rushed to me. They could have done a lot more with the show. This is why I’m kind of glad Jordan Peele had nothing to do with this, because I would’ve been disappointed. THEM started off really strong but didn’t end strong enough for me, and for that, I give the show a 6 out of 10.
