Binge Or Cringe: ‘The Other Black Girl’ Imperfectly Joins The List Of Black Horror Shows
Hulu’s The Other Black Girl paints itself as the latest addition to Black horror’s legacy. Made most famous by Jordan Peele, the subgenre translates the everyday fears and struggles of African American existence into the supernatural. In The Other Black Girl, Nella Rogers’ (Sinclair Daniel) struggle to not ruffle the feathers of her white coworkers at Wagner Books manifests as flickering fluorescents and cult conspiracies. Nella falls down the rabbit hole when “the other Black girl,” Hazel-May McCall (Ashleigh Murray), is hired at Wagner. Elated at first, mysterious messages warning Nella to leave Wagner and gestures from Hazel that seem too nice soon turn the dream-come-true to a nightmare. Based on Zakiya Dalila Harris’ book, Harris developed the show alongside Rashida Jones. With merely 10 episodes each 30 minutes long, The Other Black Girl begins to say something interesting about tokenism, assimilation, and the compromises Black women make for success but fails to gain a strong foothold. The series is intriguing, entertaining, and an easy binge, but it falls short of its thematic goals.
Meet Nella
Fluid writing and nuanced acting make The Other Black Girl compelling and pleasing to watch. The complex pain of the cognitive dissonance surrounding success as a Black woman in a white world is clearly written on Daniel’s face. Subtle eyebrow raises as Nella picks her battles — her passion clashing with her internalized need to not make waves — do heavy lifting for the show’s social commentary. Murray plays Hazel as the perfect foil, confident and enigmatic. As Hazel goes from undermining Nella at work to standing up for her ideas, from bringing soup to Nella’s apartment to watching Nella from behind corners, the viewer never can tell what truth lies behind Hazel’s bold smile. When Hazel’s background is finally revealed, her motivations as part of the central conspiracy are satisfyingly fleshed out. Murray portrays Hazel’s transformation earnestly, making her believable and sympathetic as an antagonist.
As the season progresses, Nella’s brash best friend Malaika (Brittany Adebumola) takes her share of the spotlight. Her unabashed exclamations of distrust for Hazel and excitement about taking her down effectively contribute to the show’s comedic side. Her candid interactions with Nella and their mutual inexperience with uncovering conspiracy make for down to earth, relatable heroes.
Rounding out the cast are Eric McCormack as Richard Wagner, the charming but potentially untrustworthy Editor-in-Chief of Wagner Books; Hunter Parrish as Owen, Nella’s supportive, white boyfriend; and Garcelle Beauvais as Diana Gordan, Nella’s idol and the author of her favorite book, Burning Heart. Every character is sympathetic in their own way, with the antagonists balancing understandable motivation and good intentions with downright creepiness. The acting is bolstered by well-written dialogue, which is all-around natural, from microaggressions and venting between friends to the antagonists’ ominously gentle explanations of their schemes.
Was it Binge or Cringe?
The Other Black Girl promises supernatural horror from the beginning. The show opens with a woman running from the Wagner office screaming as the lights menacingly flicker. Nella is accosted by visions of office photographs screaming at her to get out and reflections in the elevator of Kendra Rae Phillips (Cassi Maddox), the one Black editor at the company from 40 years ago. However, aside from a few creepy scenes, The Other Black Girl does not fully utilize the horror genre. Magical hair grease becomes an important plot point, but this magic is not explained. Neither are the other frights, which end up irrelevant to the central conspiracy, outside of foreshadowing.
The horror elements carry a heavy burden of building intrigue in the first half of the season. There is no real action or new information revealed until the fourth episode, when the source of the warnings is revealed. Even this is more something out of an action movie than horror. The plot only really starts moving in episode seven, when the central conspiracy is uncovered. The story progresses quickly from there, with the leader of the conspiracy revealed in episode eight and resolution occurring in episodes nine and ten.
Prior to this, the audience is left with a standard office drama. One episode’s main arc is that Hazel throws Nella under the bus after saying she’ll back Nella’s controversial opinion about an author at work. While this very real scenario taps into how minorities must step on each other to get ahead, the conflict is predictable without any freshness or escalation through horror or other elements.
While the plot is a bit slow, the show remains entertaining through light satirical comedy. Overeager “allies” at work and ignorant authors are the butts of old jokes, though they are executed well enough to remain funny. Brian Baumgartner (The Office) makes an appearance as a racist author who is valuable to the company; in one scene, he livestreams, telling his audience he doesn’t see color, only characters, and punctuating his humorously recognizable ignorance with a puff of his vape in the middle of the sentence. The rivalry between the two female editors at Wagner also plays out in humorous, passive aggressive jabs; this provides thought-provoking commentary on how minorities are not only tokenized but pitted against each other.
Unfortunately, The Other Black Girl does not explore these themes of race and success as thoroughly as it might have. After throwing Nella under the bus, Hazel’s only fault is being too nice and supportive. Hazel backs Nella’s fight against the racist author, points out when Nella’s boss tries to pass off Nella’s idea as her own, and pushes Nella to be more confident in networking. Wagner Books also responds to Nella and Hazel’s push for change, dropping the racist author, firing the editor who tried to bury evidence of the author’s racism, and starting a campaign for elevating Black authors.
The series’ mixed messaging pervades even the climax. A driving conflict is that Wagner forced Diana to make the ending of her book more positive before publishing it, which she did against Kendra Rae’s objections. However, Hazel points out to Nella in her final monologue that, “Kendra Rae, she stood her ground. But for what? For a book that actually touched you?” This point is never countered and is convincing in a way that makes our hero’s motivations to take down Wagner unclear. Hazel’s monologue takes on a more insidious tone when she says, “Compromising doesn’t have to mean giving up your goals. You just have to play the game.” Yet, The Other Black Girl’s inconsistency continues in the very execution of the show; Harris gave the series a different, more hopeful ending than the book, leaving the story open to sell future seasons. The Other Black Girl’s greatest failure is in its weak attempt to manifest and rouse fears around a conspiracy of assimilation.
Who will like it?
The Other Black Girl makes promises of exploring tokenism and assimilation through a blend of horror and satirical comedy. While the series raises thought-provoking questions on race and success, delivers creepy horror moments, and keeps viewers entertained with timely jokes, it is trying to do too much at once with only 10 half-hour episodes. The horror elements do not tie into the plot and sometimes even distract from the compelling, real-life questions the series raises. That being said, the limited length makes the show easy to binge, and the premise alone might be enough to make it worth the watch, with humor and genuinely surprising twists to bolster it. An open ending for season one leaves hope that a second season will deliver on The Other Black Girl’s lofty promises. All 10 episodes of The Other Black Girl’s first season can be streamed on Hulu.
