4 out of 5
Created by: Diarra Kilpatrick
covers seasons 1 and 2
I recognize there are plenty of season-long mystery shows out there, and that they slice (in general) a couple ways: your True Detective style focus, where each episode is zeroed in on stepping us closer to a final reveal – and the number of red herrings along that path can scale up or down generally in a somewhat linear relation to the quality of the show – or something like your everyday procedural shows, a la Criminal Minds: Evolution, in which a background plot is can-kicked around otherwise bottle episodes, with one or two season-long details sneaked into each episode.
Diarra from Detroit probably leans more towards the former than the latter, but it’s a unique compromise: several season-long threads running throughout, with excellent bottle episode payoffs in terms of character development and side quests, which in turn unlock new advances in the story. That’s… a very real feeling: the sudden and slow roll of our day-to-day, during which we don’t necessarily experience life as momentous cliffhangers or bite-sized experiences but instead kind of inch our way toward relative successes, smartly compacted into 40ish minute segments by Diarra Kilpatrick – playing the titular Diarra – and her cowriters. Yeah, that’s still very much a TV show (just as there is a core mystery to hook us), except normalized in a way that makes it incredibly present, and timely, in much the same way that the other “D” in the show’s title, Detroit, feels as real as any non-Detroit native like myself can dare to assume it to be. In short, while Diarra from Detroit purposefully toils in noir and soap opera-ish tropes, from its opening scene – when Diarra interrupts the robbery of her home to discover that the invader is a childhood friend, and with whom she naturally then has stay over for a meal – I was hooked on the lived-in nature of the show’s world, and the flesh-and-blood dimensionality of its characters. In addition to the show being hilarious, downright thrilling at points, and for each season’s mystery to legit hold up the whole way through.
Diarra is: a teacher, and recently separated from Swa (Morris Chestnut), her philandering – maybe? – husband, now relocated to her childhood home. She reconnects with an aforementioned childhood friend, Danger (Jon Chaffin) now turned well-intentioned gangster and therapy guru; and after some tiffs manages the same with another old friend and now neighbor, Moni (Claudia Logan). A longterm friendgroup of fellow teacher Tea (Bryan Terrell Clark) and socialite / businessperson Aja (DomiNque Perry) supports Diarra’s eventual return to dating on the apps, through which she has her first date with Chris (Shannon Wallace), who… might also be the grown up Deonte – a local boy who disappeared 30 years ago. The date goes amazingly. And then Chris, or Deonte, disappears again.
Diarra, teacher and divorcee, then becomes a self-proclaimed P.I., egging on her friends and getting much further along on solving a decades old mystery than the boy’s mother (Phylicia Rashad), or a grizzled ex-police (David Zayas), and also getting all up in Detroit’s shady politics and criminal underworlds. …And also, Diarra Kilpatrick and her behind-the-scenes team keep this in line with Diarra the TV character dealing with the loss of her old and new relationships, and singledom, and sense of self; Aja’s struggles to start up a business on her own terms; the ins and outs of The D’s social politics; and more, and more, delivered within the borders of the show’s grounded sensibilities.
Season two swaps out some characters for Method Man and Bokeem Woodbine and a new mystery, but the writers do an admirable job of acknowledging / nodding to the first season consistently enough that it feels like a true follow-on and continuation of the characters and world, though it is maybe unavoidably abrupt for the major events of season one to become background eight episodes later. (Though, arguably, that’s part of that true-to-life vibe – today’s tragedy is tomorrow’s old news.) And while I am praising the juggling of genres and tones throughout the show, there’s a bit of a plus/minus to it being very mystery forward: it gets pretty stuffed in its eight episode seasons with details. Not red herrings; not blind alleys; just lots of puzzle pieces that are fun to put together, but on a rewatch I recognized there were some layers that probably could have been simplified.
Still, the fact that I rewatched it is pretty telling: this is a funny, whip-smart show that does a little bit of a lot of things incredibly well. I don’t know how I feel about some incredibly dodgy CG late in season one (like I’m not even sure why it was necessary, though maybe it was a replacement shot for something that didn’t turn out well…?), but whatever dollars or time couldn’t be spared for that moment went in to otherwise crafting a truly original hodgepodge of mystery, drama, thriller and comedy, unique in ways that should be impossible in this media soaked decade.
