NEW YORK, NY.- “UnPrisoned” on Hulu is the rare show to focus on the aftermath of incarceration and its ongoing effects on families rather than on imprisonment itself.
Created by Tracy McMillan and loosely based on her 2011 memoir, “I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway,” the series stars Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington as Edwin and Paige, a father and daughter trying to repair their relationship when Edwin comes back into Paige’s life after serving 17 years in prison.
The first season explored the emotional injury that Edwin’s long absence inflicted on Paige, an avid Instagrammer, therapist and single mother who struggles with a string of unhealthy romantic partners. The second season, which premiered Wednesday, delves deeper into how the issues of abandonment, anxiety and mistrust have been passed down through three generations, and it depicts the hard work it takes for the family to break the trauma cycle and begin to heal.
Though the show spotlights a serious societal problem — mass incarceration — it does so with a light touch, finding humor as well as difficulty in the challenges of reentry.
Such nuance is what drew both Lindo and Washington to this story about, as Lindo put it, “the problems of families that have been decimated by the penal system and their trying to reconnect.”
“Shining light on that process and on one individual who has been imprisoned for as long as my character was, while also doing it somewhat comedically, was genuinely very, very interesting to me,” he said.
Washington helped develop “UnPrisoned” through her production company, Simpson Street. She said Lindo was her only choice for Edwin because she needed someone who could handle the comedy while also being able to convey the complexity and charisma of McMillan’s father, who inspired the character.
“I said in my pitches, ‘It’s Delroy or we don’t have a show,’” she said.
The second season brings a notable new character — the family’s eccentric therapist, played by John Stamos — and returning young actors Jordyn McIntosh, who plays Paige’s inner girl, and Faly Rakotohavana, who plays Paige’s son, Finn. In separate video interviews, Washington and Lindo spoke about the role of comedy in “UnPrisoned” and what they hope the series can contribute to discussions about criminal justice reform.
These are edited excerpts from the conversations.
Q: How did “UnPrisoned” come about?
KERRY WASHINGTON: During the pandemic, a mutual friend asked, “Do you know Tracy McMillan?” I was a fan of the show “Family or Fiancé” that she hosted on OWN, and thought she was really funny. So when I eventually read the script for “UnPrisoned,” I loved it immediately. Also, anyone who’s read my memoir [“Thicker Than Water,” from 2023] knows that during the pandemic, I was navigating my own complicated relationship with my dad and my parents. So a lot of the stuff on this show resonated for me.
Q: “Orange Is the New Black” included plenty of humor, but most shows about the criminal justice system and its impact are dramas, like “Oz,” “Prison Break” or “For Life.” How does comedy help illuminate this crisis differently?
DELROY LINDO: It is a clever way to avoid proselytizing and perhaps be a little more engaging, if people have the outlet of laughter.
I approached it in the same way that I would approach anything else, which is just finding the truth of this person, of this person’s reality. I did meet Tracy’s father, but I was not trying to impersonate him. He gave me a lot of information and insights into his life. Then I met with formerly incarcerated men who work in an organization in Los Angeles. I spoke with them about their experiences and what led them to be incarcerated in the first place. I was gathering all of this data and then adding to that my process as an actor, which often involves identifying the areas of commonality between myself and whichever character I’m playing.
WASHINGTON: A lot of the tone comes from Tracy, who is just a really funny person; her memoir is hilarious. Tracy is a miracle. She was in and out of dozens of foster homes and has had a really traumatic life because of her interactions with the system; the foster care system is like a pipeline to incarceration. And she not only survived but has become the woman that she is today.
I think she navigates a lot of life through maintaining a perspective that allows for laughter and gives people, including herself, a lot of grace. Tracy’s dad was funny. My dad is funny. We’re trying to be really honest with this show, and the truth is that life is often ridiculous and funny. And you can survive some of the darkest moments when you can have that kind of perspective.
Q: What was it like to work together?
WASHINGTON: Delroy hates when I tell this story, but when I was in high school, I saw him playing West Indian Archie in [Spike Lee’s] movie “Malcolm X,” and it changed my understanding of what an actor could do. At the beginning of the movie, he is the powerful, sexy, dangerous, elegant badass. And then at the end, he’s the most vulnerable character. You believe that it’s the same man, even though you couldn’t imagine a more different incarnation of that person.
When Tracy talks about people meeting her dad, they’d say, “Oh, I would never think that he’s been in and out of prison your whole life. He’s so smart; he’s so elegant; he’s so well-spoken; he’s so charming.” So I thought Delroy could play my dad on the show, who is also so brilliant, so smart and so badass.
LINDO: I was watching some episodes recently, and I was looking at Kerry playing my daughter, who is so neurotic. And what I admired was that Kerry gives herself over to that neuroticism. She’s vulnerable to it and expresses through it and from it. It’s really admirable as an actor.
Q: Much of this show is about recovering from trauma. How did you approach showing this intergenerational story of healing?
WASHINGTON: Therapy with that crazy man. John Stamos is so brilliant — he adds such a great layer of comedy but also the ridiculous. And Delroy and I were also blown away by Faly, who plays my son, Finn, in Season 1. So in Season 2 we wanted to give him more room to flex and continue to grow as an actor.
It’s also perfect for these characters, because they go into family therapy for him: They are willing to face stuff that they’ve never been able to before because they don’t want Finn one day to be complaining about Paige to his children. They’re like, we have to figure out how to stop this cycle so that this child can be free.
LINDO: I think what audiences are seeing are human beings trying to connect. And when one thinks about Black people, African-descended people, the vast majority of our problems as a people have been caused by other folk not seeing our humanity.
Q: What do you hope audiences take away from “UnPrisoned”?
LINDO: That people are deserving of second chances and can be rehabilitated. That may seem like an extremely utopian, rose-colored-glasses type comment, but when we think about the warehousing of human beings in this country — which on many levels is what the federal prison system does — the vast, disproportionate number are Black and brown people. So what I’m hoping is that there is a reinvestigation of the worth of human beings, and how human beings who are being incarcerated can be reengaged and healed.
WASHINGTON: A big part is wanting to get people beyond stereotypes and statistics and really humanize this issue, because that was often the experience that people had when they met Tracy’s dad. So how do you scale that? You scale that in storytelling and an experiment in empathy.
This issue of mass incarceration is core to our culture as Americans because the system has destroyed so many families across so many races. I’m really proud that we’re telling the story through the lens of this very real Black family, but this is an American story.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
