The Other Black Girl Season 1 Review

The Other Black Girl (2023-)
Season 1 -10 episodes (2023)

Watch The Other Black Girl on Amazon Video (paid link) // Buy the book (paid link)
Created by: Zakiya Dalila Harris, Rashida Jones
Starring: Sinclair Daniel, Ashleigh Murray, Brittany Adebumola, Hunter Parrish, Bellamy Young, Garcelle Beauvais, Eric McCormack
Rated: TV-14
Watch the trailer

Plot
An African-American editorial assistant works at a white NYC publishing firm. When a black co-worker arrives she gets excited, but is the new girl a friend or a foe?

Verdict
This weaves an engrossing mystery while also commenting on culture. It does feel a bit like Get Out or Us crossed with The Consultant while not matching either.  Like many of these complex mystery shows the conclusion can make or break it. This show parlays the potential of a satisfactory conclusion for the chance at a second season. This mystery doesn't hold up under scrutiny, and that may very well be why the answer was pushed into future episodes. What this does do well are the awkward interactions between new coworkers in an awkward situation.
It depends.

Review
The first scene sets the tone with a woman fleeing some kind of unknown force in a very dirty '80s New York subway car. That's just a teaser before we cut to present day at a book publisher. Nella (Sinclair Daniel) is the only black employee at Wagner, and she's excited when Hazel-May (Ashleigh Murray) is hired. They become fast friends, and this show does such a good job with natural dialog and that awkward back and forth in a new friendship. All of the older white employees think they should pair up, though not stating why, because of course. Wagner wants to be open and diverse, or at least seems like it.

Ashleigh Murray, Sinclair Daniel play Hazel-May, Nella

A lot of this show is trying to determine if Hazel-May really wants to be Nella's friend. There's an incident early that makes it seem like Hazel-May is setting Nella up for failure, but then later she defends Nella. Nella's friends are suspicious, but this is a coworker. Most people can understand how you can't just drop that relationship. Nella will see her every day, and that needs to be cordial. You begin to think Nella sees her as a friend mostly because she wishes it were true.

Eric McCormick, Garcelle Beauvais, Sinclair Daniel, Ashleigh Murray, play
Richard Wagner, Diana Gordon, Nella, Hazel-May

This show can be very cryptic. There are many odd elements and clues just to make us wonder what's going on. We and Nella are promised answers that never come because of some dark conspiracy.

When Nella's suspicions become too much she confronts Hazel, who seems to have an excuse for everything. By this point the audience doesn't trust Hazel, and each episode includes more scenes that reveal just enough to get an idea of the conspiracy. We finally get an explanation for what the conspiracy is, but not exactly how it works. 

This is a workplace mystery like The Consultant, but none of the episodes are quite as gripping. The final episode even references Get Out, which is too pointed. It's painfully predictable, providing us a why, but not a how. We don't get a solid conclusion. This needed one more episode, but instead delays the conclusion to hopefully parlay another season.

SPOILERS

Hazel-May is on a mission to transform black women. Some she transforms voluntarily, some are forced. Nella is a target. We're not sure why. This has built a very curious mystery, and I wasn't sure this could deliver. It doesn't. Hazel is empowering women which is good, but it's forced which obviously is bad. We get why Hazel would buy into this scheme due to her past. Why Dianna orchestrated this is less clear specifically, but understandable. How this pulls off the transformation is less clear. How does this cream work? That's given no answer whatsoever. The final episode gives Dianna a big villain monologue to reveal her goals, and then Kendra Ray shows up to save Nella. It's a ridiculous deus ex machina. I would guess how this works is not explained, because how could they possibly explain it.