*While fans were slow to catch on to NBC’s “The Carmichael Show,” critics embraced the freshman series based on the comedy of Jerrod Carmichael, and the network believed in it enough to greenlight a second season.
Looking back on Season One – which found humor in such topics as atheism, legal gun ownership and looting during racial unrest – co-star Loretta Devine feared the show would become a target of the NAACP.
“Oh God, all the stuff in the gun episode, anything that had to do with the riots and race relationships,” Devine told EURweb at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour on Wednesday. “You always wonder how far can you take anything, and can you really get away with laughing at this when so much is going on that’s similar in the world, with black men being shot while they’re running away, eight times in the back. So, yeah, you want to know, can you get away with talking about it and then making people laugh.”
Below, Devine, who plays Jerrod’s God-fearing mother, tells us if she’s gotten any backlash from African American viewers:
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