Tuesday night’s episode of Black-ish brought a highly-anticipated reunion of the cast of Girlfriends.
The episode was part of “cast from the past” reunion week on ABC, and featured Persia White, Golden Brooks, and Jill Marie Jones visiting Tracee Ellis Ross. Reggie Hayes, who played William on Girlfriends, made a cameo at the end of the show.
The storyline centered on Rainbow (Ross) realizing her women’s activist group was very white. She called up three girlfriends for a “black-up,” and a discussion on whether modern-day feminism benefits Black women.
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While the episode titled “Feminisn’t” generated headlines and social media buzz, the attention did not translate into a ratings boost.
The Oct. 8 episode of Black-ish drew 3 million viewers and a .7 rating, about the same as the previous week, according to tvseriesfinale.com.
Girlfriends debuted in 2000 on UPN and aired on the network for six seasons before moving to The CW for its final two seasons.
Recurring cast members over the years included Flex Alexander, Keesha Sharp, Jenifer Lewis, Yvette Nicole Brown, Phil Morris, Aldis Hodge, Jill Scott, Kadeem Hardison, Richard T. Jones, Malik Yoba, and Anne-Marie Johnson, just to name a few.
Before the reunion aired, Ross expressed her excitement about bringing the main cast of the sitcom back together.
“The timing was perfect to be able to bring Girlfriends to a whole new audience. We haven’t all been together on camera since 2006,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “Girlfriends ran for eight years and was important to so many people. Being able to merge the worlds of Black-ish and Girlfriends was surreal for me — and so much fun. These are women I grew up with and love deeply and it was easy to tap back into the magic of our chemistry and how much we love each other. It was giggles on top of giggles on top of giggles.”
Mara Brock Akil created and executive produced the series. Additional executive producers included Kelsey Grammer and Regina Y. Hicks, while Angie Stone wrote and performed the theme song titled “Girlfriends.”
Brock Akil also created The Game, which was a spinoff of Girlfriends.
The spinoff starred Tia Mowry, Pooch Hall, Brittany Daniel, Hosea Chanchez, and Coby Bell. It aired on The CW (2006–09) before it moved to BET (2011–15), making Brock Akil the first African-American female showrunner to have two shows airing on network TV at the same time.
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