'Mixed-ish' trailer introduces us to Rainbow Johnson's world in the 1980s and it's full of verve and sass
The trailer of the ABC show 'Mixed-ish' released Tuesday and it looks like a lot of fun. We see the adult Rainbow Johnson (Tracee Ellis Ross), who is a doctor, a wife and a mother of five children. However, the children do not really know their mother's childhood story.
For instance, they definitely did not have a clue that their mother lived in a commune, or that the elders of the commune were arrested. Oh, my bad, like Rainbow says in the trailer, "They didn't get arrested, they were detained... for three to five years." Definitely not shocking to the children at all. I mean, who are we kidding?
So, Rainbow takes her children on a walk down memory lane as she introduces her family, the lifestyle of living in a commune, how the elders got arrested and finally, how Arica Himmell as the younger Rainbow and her siblings adjusted to living amid the humdrum of a city.
This also included high school. It was the summer of 1985 that changed Rainbow's life. Her commune was considered a radicalized cult which violated 47 ATF laws by the government. So, after the commune broke up, the family went to live with their paternal grandfather, who is a white man who lives by the second amendment - the right to own arms.
The kids - Johan (Ethan William), who looked at all modern technology as magic, Santa Monica (Mykal-Michelle Harris) "who complained like a woman with no kids on her third divorce," and Rainbow - were sent to school with no orientation about how the real world works. To say they had a culture shock, would be an understatement. They do not even understand what being "mixed" means.
Unlike mixed kids today who can look up to rappers, ballerinas, athletes, a president, and a princess; in Rainbow's time, there were no such idols to look up to. The story is about how three mixed kids mingle with people in the real world. While the story is narrated by Rainbow, most exciting to watch is little girl Santa Monica. That girl's level of sass is big-time goals!
The kids get a major makeover from their aunt Dee Dee who tells the kids they look like runaway house slaves. The kids understand pretty quickly that it is hard to be a rainbow in a black and white world. As Santa Monica put it, "We are living in a material world and I am a material girl."
The show is slated to premiere in the fall on ABC Tuesdays at 9 pm ET.