It’s no surprise that Tyler Perry’s Chicago-based soap opera is back for a second season—the first season arrived last year with a bang, ranking as Netflix’s fourth-most-watched series at the time. Only six months after the second part of the first season debuted, the series is back with more drama, intrigue, and backstabbing among the Bellarie family and those who orbit them.
Opening Shot: Season 2 picks up after Horace’s bombshell news about his new (though sham) marriage to Kimmie in the hospital room moments after his family have left in protest. He’s coughing and certain that his time is running short, but he’s gleeful to keep his greedy family away from the company shares and money, while Kimmie is concerned about what this might mean for her and her family’s safety.
The Gist: The patriarch of the wealthy mogul Horace Bellarie is in the hospital, dying from cancer, and in order to ensure his greedy family doesn’t get more money or company stock than he believes they deserve, he marries stripper Kimmie and effectively gives her control of the company. The entire Bellarie clan are ruthless backstabbers and intimately involved in extramarital affairs with members of the staff as well as Kimmie and her strip club friends, and refuse to accept this new dynamic quietly.
In the season premiere, Horace promises to teach Kimmie how to play the game against his family, while she demands that her sister and fellow strippers Rain and Angel are written into the will for their protection. The only problem is that Angel is also wrapped up in a carjacking that may or may not involve Horace, which will threaten Kimmie’s safety and the family’s legacy. Elsewhere, the Bellarie family learn that Horace’s new marriage means that everyone’s inheritance has decreased by10% and are determined to find a way to stop him from diluting their wealth.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With control of the family company and its shares on the line, the first half of season 2 of Black Beauty is giving shades of Succession—though the execution couldn’t be more different.
Our Take: If there’s one word you’ll never find next to Tyler Perry’s name, it’s timid. Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black is audacious in both its premise and its execution, which sprawls across every class of Black American in Chicago. You have the outrageously wealthy Bellarie family, most of whom can’t stand each other but tolerate their kin for access to the wealth tied to the family business. There are the more middle-class characters who generally work for the family, like their lawyers and security. And then there are the lower-class strippers that find themselves caught up in the tentacles of the Bellaries.
Beauty in Black is often billed as a soap opera, and that’s the perfect category for what happens in the series, including the recently released second season. In the season 2 premiere alone, the Bellarie patriarch announces from his deathbed that he’s married a stripper, giving her control of his company, simply out of spite for his family. That stripper may or may not have also had a fling with the patriarch’s son. It’s a twisted web of lies and sabotage, but I can’t say it’s not entertaining.
When the series first premiered, the logline centered on the plight of two very different women. Mallory, a Bellarie with family issues, and Kimmie, a stripper with money problems. Some of the most compelling aspects of the show are still when their problems are front-and-center and when they are going head-to-head, as they do once Kimmie takes up the COO mantle.
Still, there are some tropes on display. Homosexuality is still viewed as “disgusting” by the majority of the characters on the show, including Roy who uses that word when finding his Varney with his brother Charles, and stripping and sex work are spoken about derogatorily. These aren’t surprising plot and character beats, but they miss the chance to elevate the conversation and challenge viewers to reconsider established viewpoints.
All things considered, Beauty in Black is a propulsive and addicting drama about a family who will stop at nothing to get what’s theirs. It’s not going to win any Emmy’s, but the ride is still entertaining.
Sex and Skin: The most explicit image we see are of two men post-coital, but this show didn’t shy away from showing more in the first season, so expect the sex and skin to ramp up throughout the rest of the season.
Parting Shot: In one of the show’s many tangled webs of sex and deception, Varney, the family’s attorney, is trying to leave Charles’s home after a hookup, but doesn’t get very far before running into Charles’s brother, the hotheaded Roy. “What the fuck did I just hear?” Roy says to a semi-dressed Varney—this is a secret he’ll definitely use as leverage.
Sleeper Star: Steven G. Norfleet plays Charles, one of the Bellarie family children, as an unbothered gay man whose biggest concern is where the next party is. In the second season premiere, he’s full of one-off comments that are the main source of humor in the episode.
Most Pilot-y Line:: “It’s easy to play games with the [guy] who looks at what’s in front of him,” Horace explains to Kimmie, before setting up the season’s path forward. “But I’m gonna teach you how to look around corners and into the future. Leverage is the way.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. Beauty in Black is not prestige TV, but it’s a frothy and twisted soap that you might find yourself bingeing.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.