TV Review - Our Kind of People

Based on a book by Lawrence Otis Graham, this series is about the elite, African-American community in the northeast. It's a soap opera with a predominantly Black cast. Lee Daniels is a producer of the series. Daniels had recent success with a soap opera about wealthy Black people called Empire (2015), and one can see the DNA of Empire within the narrative of this series, which is written by Karin Gist who was a writer on Daniels' spin-off series Star (2016). This show similarly centers on a Black family that controls a very powerful business and the interpersonal issues that threaten that powerful business. In Empire, the squabbles were mainly between the mother and father with some focus on the adult siblings who were all boys. Here, the squabbles are less between the mother and father but more the adult siblings who are two sisters or half-sisters.

Yaya DaCosta (Chicago Med and All My Children) stars as Angela Vaughn, a single mother of a teenage daughter. Angela is also a business owner. She has a company called Eve's Crown, which is all about hair-care for Black women. Angela sells hair-care products and wants to make a fortune off it. She's not that far flung from Madam C. J. Walker who was recently the subject of an Emmy-nominated series called Self Made (2020). The difference between Angela and Madam Walker is that Madam Walker wanted to straighten hair and style Black women in a way akin to White women. Angela wants Black women to be as natural as possible, styling their hair in a way that embraces the way their hair already is.

Nadine Ellis (Greenhouse Academy and Let's Stay Together) co-stars as Leah Franklin Dupont, the half-sister to Angela. They have different mothers but the same father. They were separated when they were little girls and never knew about each other. They grew up apart. Leah grew up in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, which is a town located on Martha's Vineyard. Oak Bluffs is known as a place where a lot of wealthy African-Americans live. Martha's Vineyard in general is a place where wealthy people live or visit. Leah is very bourgeoisie and leans more snobbish. She has a teenage daughter as well, but Leah's relationship with her daughter isn't as good as Angela's. Leah is married to a businessman.

Yet, Leah is herself a businesswoman. She works for her father's company. Her father's company is Franklin Holdings, an investment company for a lot of other businesses. The company purchases controlling stocks in those businesses. It's been very successful and Leah wants to be the CEO or the one running the company. However, her father who is currently the CEO doesn't want to step aside. Leah is in a bit of a struggle to takeover her father's company or at least have more power and control within it. Leah's husband, Raymond Dupont, played by Morris Chestnut (The Resident and Rosewood), is also trying to take down Leah's father.

Joe Morton (Scandal and Eureka) also co-stars as Teddy Franklin, the father to both Leah and Angela. If one has seen the series Scandal, Morton's character there is basically his character here. Teddy is a very strong, stubborn, fierce and absolutely no-nonsense guy who can be cutting and underhanded in his dealings, if he needs to be. He has very high and strict standards. A lot of it is informed by the racism and other struggles he's obviously faced in his life. He did walk away from Angela when she was a little girl because he was more concerned with maintaining or building his legacy.

Angela has to try to build up her company and make Eve's Crown a brand that's recognized nationwide and eventually globally. Like with Empire, this series doesn't seem like it's going to go into the nitty gritty of how a company like Eve's Crown will grow itself. It's doing a lot of the broad strokes. Self Made did a better job of getting into the nitty gritty. Presumably, Angela has a product line, but it's not clear where it's being manufactured or how it's being distributed. Maybe she's not there yet, but the show has shown no signs she's working on that. Empire was about music artists, so it was important to see those characters making and working on their music. If this series is about hair-care, seeing Angela work on that is important.

Alana Kay Bright plays Nikki Vaughn, the daughter to Angela. A part of this show that is important is Angela's relationship with Nikki. I was reminded of Miss Juneteenth (2020), which is also about a mother and daughter. The mother struggles financially and focuses a lot on superficial things that do have ties to race and culture but the daughter feels as though her mother is more concerned with something that's performative rather than substantive. There's an echo of that here between Nikki and Angela. As the series goes along, it seems as if it will be how Angela and Nikki integrate themselves into the lives and family of Leah.

The pacing and the narrative are moving at a similar speed to Empire. This series might be a good substitute for Empire, as a Black prime-time soap. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the flash that Empire had, which was due in large part to Taraji P. Henson, her presence and performance. Something like How To Get Away With Murder (2014) had an intriguing premise, which hooked a lot of people, but it was also buttressed due in large part to Viola Davis, her presence and performance. Davis and Henson were anchors that had more gravitas. DaCosta is trying to be that anchor. Yet, Davis and Henson are older. They're in their late 40's and early 50's for their respective TV shows. DaCosta is in her mid to late 30's. DaCosta is a good actress but she doesn't bring that kind of figurative weight to this that Davis and Henson brought to their shows.

Rated TV-14.
Running Time: 1 hr.
Tuesdays at 9 PM on FOX.