"Florida's Homecoming" kicks off the four part opener for the sixth and final season (chapters one and two a one hour broadcast), welcoming back Esther Rolle and adding new cast member Ben Powers as aspiring running back Keith Anderson (Janet Jackson as Penny now almost as tall as her screen mother). The network was hoping to prevent ratings from slipping even further, and while that didn't happen it was definitely an improvement on season five. JJ chooses to spend his salary on clothes rather than save it in the bank: "I attracts more interest this way!" Michael is getting ready to leave for college, both he and Thelma coming home late at night. Bookman spotted Thelma necking with a guy in a red Cadillac, so JJ figures he'll teach the creep a lesson: "I think he already knows how!" She reveals her boyfriend of one month to be Keith Albert Anderson, Heisman trophy runner up, in town to sign a million dollar contract with the hometown Bears: "you mean you, the ugly duckling, has snagged the golden goose?" Keith is pleased to meet JJ: "the man who has created more moves than prune juice!" Penny's impression of Mae West inspires Keith's impression of W.C. Fields. Right in front of everybody he proposes to Thelma, who can't find herself saying no. Walking through the door at the conclusion is Florida, home at last in time for her daughter's wedding (no further mention of her atheist second husband Carl Dixon, the unspoken rumor being that he died from his cancer).
4 Reviews
Rushing things a bit
gregorycanfield13 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Before we meet Keith Anderson for the first time, we see the actor Ben Powers in the opening credits. There couldn't have been much suspense about whether he and Thelma would get married. There had to be a reason that he was officially part of the cast, right off the bat. There was no build up to the Thelma/Keith situation. As this episode opens, Willona, JJ and Michael have no idea what's going on with Thelma. By the end of episode, Thelma agrees to marry Keith, and Florida is coming back from Arizona for the wedding. I guess alot can happen in 30 minutes! The Keith character came on pretty strong, for a newcomer. However, Powers was a good actor, and made it all palatable. To be continued next week.
Esther to the rescue
jj_hansell24 March 2021
Where to begin? How about with the lady with magic touch, Florida Evans, as portrayed by Esther Rolle? She returns from a season long absence and shows that she hasn't lost her touch: Her new husband, Carl, whose atheism was only mentioned in one episode, fwiw, but that was evidently enough to have him killed off & never spoken of again as a condition of Esther Rolle making a "triumphant" return to the series. Anyway, Florida marries a man who dies shortly thereafter. arrives home for Thelma's wedding and JJ loses his job immediately thereafter, and in a very short time, Thelma's husband ends up losing out on his million dollar football contract. Followers of the series will recognize this as a continuation of Florida's amazing ability to ruin every opportunity the Evans family had to better themselves and their circumstances: $5000 for a health tonic commercial, James's lucrative jobs as a pipeline worker or as an assistant to a televangelist, JJ's Black Jesus painting, James finding $30 grand from a robbery, and many more instances. Florida ruined them all. One other thing about this episode & the series in general: One of the writers must have had some kind of fetish about Kool Aid-there's a Kool Aid "joke" in just about every episode, and not a single one of them is funny. This odd trend kept going long after the "Dy-No-Mite" catch phrase had died out. In this one, Thelma's beau, Keith Anderson, is given the middle name Albert just so his initials can be "K.A.", which JJ proposes using as a marketing gimmick to sponsor Kool Aid. Yeah, really. And the build up to this tortuous "joke" goes on for quite a while. Dreadful stuff.
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