The Upshaws season 3 review: The Netflix sitcom turns up the drama

When it arrived on Netflix in 2021, The Upshaws stood out as a refreshing twist on the typical family sitcom. They cuss. They fight. They’re the type of broke in which a bottle of body wash isn’t truly empty when you can still add some water and get a couple more uses out of it. You’d hardly call them a perfect bunch, and they certainly would never have made it to the small screen in the days of the Cosbys and the Bankses. The show’s excellence has always come from its ability to highlight the hilarity of everyday life. Yet in this new third season, there are moments when it’s just too hard to laugh.

The heads of this Indianapolis family are car mechanic Bennie Sr. (Mike Epps) and his high school sweetheart Regina (the always-fantastic Kim Fields). They have three kids between them: their adult son from a teen pregnancy, Bernard Jr. (Jermelle Simon); their popularity-obsessed teen daughter, Aaliyah (Khali Spraggins); and their adorable youngest Maya (Journey Christine). Bennie also has another son, Kelvin (Diamond Lyons), who’s the same age as Aaliyah, and who he co-parents with his former fling Tasha (A Black Lady Sketch Show’s Gabrielle Dennis). Rounding out the blended family is Lucretia (Wanda Sykes), Regina’s older sister and the show’s spiritual descendant of Sanford And Son’s Aunt Esther.

Heading into this latest batch of episodes, the Upshaws are going through it even more than usual. The season two finale ended with Bennie and Lucretia in jail on suspicion of selling stolen parts out of their body shop. When it rains it pours, so their arrest came right after Regina quit her job in a fit of rage after losing the scholarship that would’ve paid for her MBA. It’s an especially arduous journey for her, as she’s also still fighting with Lucretia after the sisters blew up over decades worth of pent-up resentment. It’s a rough situation for any family to emerge from, and over the course of this season, the parents do their damndest to get back on solid financial ground.

Bennie’s attempts to be a providing and attentive father to all of his kids (and the drama that ensues when he tries to bring them closer together) is the driving force for this season’s first two installments. And throughout, the show is consistently dedicated to portraying the realities of blended families, especially in scenes in which Regina and Tasha, or Kelvin and Aaliyah, have to relate to each other. What’s more, there’s Bennie Sr. and Jr.’s evolving relationship, as the younger tries to trust his father again after a lifetime of disappointment. By focusing on these dynamics (and doing so quite well), The Upshaws is able to carve out a unique place in the history of Black sitcoms.

And then there’s Regina. The show, as always, underscores how the matriarch typically ends up with the heavier load when it comes to caring for a two-parent household. In addition to cooking, cleaning, and working her medical billing job, Regina is also the one who deals with the not-so-fun side of parenting, like disciplining Aaliyah when she gets into one of her teen-girl-shenanigans subplots. Some of the biggest laughs this time around come from Regina’s reactions when, while she’s juggling five different things, Bennie saunters in and asks her to heat up something for him, as if he’s never used a microwave. Fields is thankfully given the chance to show off her impressive range as an actor here, and there are tender moments in which she reminds viewers just why Regina is still sticking with Bennie.

The final third of the show’s beating heart is Lucretia, who loves her sister, her nieces and nephew, and, at times, Bennie. Now that she and Regina are on the outs, Sykes is able to explore the character’s life outside of the Upshaw family, continuing the show’s lovely tradition of building the sitcom stock type—the disparaging aunt—into a well-rounded person. It also means that the electric chemistry between Sykes and Fields can now be put to use in dramatic scenes of them renegotiating the boundaries of their relationship.

The Upshaws remains an important part of the current Golden Age of Black TV, a working-class sitcom focusing on an underrepresented family structure. And while earlier episodes had a nice balance of struggle and levity, this one maybe piled on the financial and emotional challenges (specifically the ones with Regina) a bit too high. Every show has to change the stakes to keep up interest, but the inability of the matriarch to catch a break can push the series into downer territory. By the end of these eight episodes, the show demonstrates why it put the mother through the ringer, setting up an interesting arc for season four. It’s just a bit of an admitted slog to get to that point. Still, although this one hits a bit heavier than earlier installments, it nevertheless manages to show how funny life is, even when it’s a bummer.