Coronavirus Hits ‘black-ish’ Season 7 With Bow Working the Frontline

Balancing real-life issues and comedy is in black-ish‘s DNA.

The family sitcom begins Season 7 with matriarch Dr. Bow Johnson (Tracee Ellis Ross), a frontline worker in the early days of the pandemic, toiling tirelessly to save lives “but also protecting her family,” says executive producer Courtney Lilly. Emotional dad Dre (Anthony Anderson) contends with working from home — and the fact that his advertising job makes him less essential than his wife. 

Dre has now accepted his feisty divorced parents Earl (Laurence Fishburne) and Ruby (Jenifer Lewis) reuniting. Cupid next strikes eldest son Junior (Marcus Scribner). “We’re going to investigate him having a serious girlfriend [Katlyn Nichol’s Olivia], dealing with his first real love and romance,” Lilly explains.

And spirited twins Jack (Miles Brown) and Diane (Marsai Martin) start high school, where, he adds, “there’s a different reality for a freshman boy than there is for a freshman girl, so we’ll really see them become individuals.”

(ABC)

black-ish, Season 7 Premiere, Wednesday, October 21, 9:30/8:30c, ABC