This episode is titled “O Captain! My Captain!” which is not only a reference to the famous Walt Whitman poem of the same name but is also used in the classic film “Dead Poet’s Society.”
Shaquille’s team is hazing him so he has to walk back to his dorm in a towel. Great for us ladies.
We finally get to see Freddie Brooks! Freddie is an active lawyer and law or criminal justice professor. The students are discussing famed Black feminist, theorist, and author, just to name a few, bell hooks.
We discover that Freddie calls Deborah Moon Beam which I want to know the origin of as far as if Cree gave Maleah that name and they ran with it in the show OR if it was something she created for the show. Based on hearing Summer speak about the cast, I think she created it for Maleah. Freddie introduces her niece to Ellington. (We’ll talk about him and Deborah later.)
Shaquille comes to pick up food from The Pit, and when Shaquille asks about the team not having paid, Nellie mentions she doesn’t play about her money. Not sure what episode it’s in, but Mr. Gaines says to Dwayne and Ron that Velma doesn’t play about her money. We see where Nellie gets it from.
Kojo shows Amir the shirts he plans to sell at the game with Shaquille’s face one on them. They leaned into the Nigerian stereotype hard here. But, Kojo is a fashion merchandising major, we will later learn, so I let it go. You can see a board of swatches above his bed in his dorm room. He also has a poster just above his bed with a Ghanian man impeccably dressed–a nod to his Ghanian heritage and his passion for fashion.
The band plays “I Got 5 On It” by Luniz. By now, I’ve heard this band version, the creepy slowed down version used in Jordan Peele’s “Us,” and the original. I’m glad we actually get to see a football game and hear them chant. We always catch the crew before the game and after. Never at the game.
If you look closely, you can see the stadium is named for Walter Oakes (played by Sinbad. More on him later).
Campus security, Boo Boo, chases Kojo and Amir down for bootlegging. She is my second favorite character. We just don’t see enough of her and it made me sad. If we get a second season, more Boo Boo!
Rashida mentions that she’s Nellie’s star employee. Remind you of anyone?
Amir mentions to Kojo that he’s on probation for being at the wrong place at the wrong time back home. He doesn’t tell us what happened specifically.
Shaquille and Andre get into it because Andre mentions his mom. It’s a trigger for him since his mom is now deceased. The boys get into a fist fight and Andre hurts his hand. Coach Coles walks in with a “thicker than Fantasia” joke that made me cackle. This is fitting as Rashida will sing “Free Yourself” later in the series.
Deborah has a conversation about how her grades and learning have been since she was a child. Ellington points out that she might have a learning disability. Ellington reveals that he is dyslexic, which is a callback to Theo from “The Cosby Show.” Theo was diagnosed with dyslexia, and if you remember, Merlin Santana’s character on the show as a kid. Theo pointed out to him that he also might be dyslexic. I will talk more about Ellington when I review episode ten because he mentions that his uncle figured it out.
In a shot of Deborah and Shaquille talking on her bed, over Shaquille’s shoulder is a Broadway poster of “The Wiz.” No, this is not the movie poster. This is the version that stars Stephanie Mills from 1974.
Shaquille asks if he can stay with Deborah like old times, which reminds me of “Love & Basketball.” I’m sure like old times in this sense means when they used to date and stay over with each other. In “Love & Basketball,” Quincy used to climb out of his window, walk across the yard to Monica’s window, climb in, and make a place for himself on the floor. Those were a pair of friends who had loved each other forever and went back and forth throughout college (and life) before they finally married. Dwayne and Whitley, obviously, also went back and forth as well.
Rashida walks in on them before they get to kiss, much like she does in episode one when she alerts them that they are past curfew. She screams, and sounds JUST like her mom when she does it, and Shaquille flies out of the room–but not before he snatches her wig. Him snatching her wig SENT ME!! I MUST know if that was scripted. I’m leaning towards no because her response was so calm. She simply says, “That’s my good wig.”
The scene immediately after that Shaquille sits in his room with a picture of his mom and dad. This is when we find out that Jaclyn (played by the illustrious and beyond beautiful Halle Berry) is his mom. I was betting on Freddie. Remember Jaclyn? She was one of three Valentine’s dates that Ron had in season four, episode 15. Yeah, I thought it was in an earlier season, too. For me, this means that Halle Berry is lying about being in “Doomsday” or “Secret Wars,” but more so, “Doomsday.”
On Shaquille’s wall, you can see a framed Jalen Hurts jersey. Jalen Hurts plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. We’ll see him sport some Detroit Lions gear later but I assume light skinned men just support each other. Cornell Young IV is from Missouri, by the way. His accent was strong, for me, in this episode.
Back in class, Freddie calls on Deborah to start oral presentations (terrible idea) and Deborah says that Ashanti sung what’s love got to do with it. Amir says that it was Tina Turner. Both are correct. Tina Turner famously broke from her abusive husband Ike Turner and scored a hit with “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” Both an album and song. Ashanti AND Ja Rule have a song together called “What’s Luv.” If she had said Ashanti and Ja Rule, she would have been more correct.
Freddie tells Deborah to stop mumbling, and this is a callback to Josie in season four, episode 23 when Dr. Jordan tells Josie to stop fidgeting and mumbling through her presentation. This is the episode when she reveals that she has AIDS.
Now, Deborah doesn’t reveal something as private and huge as that, but she does go into how she ended up doom scrolling on the internet and how that made her realize she was walking through the world numb. This moment is her “O Captain, My Captain” moment. She gets to stand in front of her peers and reintroduce them to who she is after the incident at convocation. To call back to the Walt Whitman poem, “O Captain! My Captain!” was written after the murder of President Lincoln. It was to honor a man who led a nation to a better future, in short. This is what Deborah will do with her squad in episode nine and ten. We’ll talk more about that later.
At the end of this episode, we find out that President Davenport was “mismanaging funds.” “I Got 5 On It,” (the original version) plays us out.
