Comedy
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place
‘Wizards Beyond Waverly Place’ is a fitting sequel series to Disney’s ‘Wizards of Waverly Place.’ And that can be a good or a bad thing.
How is it that two brothers can turn out so differently from each other?
Take Jake Friedken. He runs Black Rabbit, an upscale restaurant in New York City that’s primed to get a good review in the New York Times. He’s looking at relocating to a new place—one that’ll offer more room, more customers and more opportunity for customers to experience the venue. By all accounts, he’s got his rabbits in a row.
In contrast, there’s his brother, Vince. He just called Jake from Reno, Nevada, begging for a plane ticket because he may have run over a man for robbing him of a valuable coin collection he had planned to sell. And when Jake obliges, well, New York City doesn’t treat him any better. It turns out he last left the Big Apple to lay low after falling down a rabbit hole of debt with some loan sharks; now that he’s back, they smell his blood in their waters, and they’re looking to collect—with interest.
Fortunately for Vince, Jake’s been finalizing the contract to sell their recently deceased mother’s home, and it should sell for enough to pay off Vince’s $140,000 debt.
So long as that contract goes through and nothing else goes wrong. Which, of course, is unlikely.
Black Rabbit is obviously named after the show’s upscale New York City restaurant. But venture in for a bite, and you’ll find a bit more blood on the tablecloths than you’d like.
The show features Jason Bateman (Vince) Jude Law (Jake) desperately scrambling away from a predatory debt that’s accumulated over the years. Given Bateman’s central role in Ozark, it’s not his first time playing a shady character like Vince. Also like Ozark, which we described as “something of a twisted family show,” Black Rabbit hits its stride when the narrative depicts its two brothers slowly figuring out their strained relationship.
Those moments, of course, generally get cut off by violence—and a lot of it, including domestic abuse, sexual assault, suicide and dismemberment. A couple of people bite the bullet by the end of the show. Heavy drug use and occasional near-nudity further rot this rabbit’s carrot.
What’s more, the show embraces a well-worn stereotype of New Yorkers that pervades much of the country, that they’re crude, rude and have a nasty ‘tude. Black Rabbit doesn’t exactly alleviate that issue; whether they’re directly involved in the crime plot or not, most characters we encounter are about as sunny as a winter in Fairbanks, Alaska. You can be sure the heavy profanity is about as frequent as the snowflakes in the same place.
There’s a myth that a rabbit’s foot will bring you luck (though fat amount of luck the aforementioned foot did for the rabbit that lost it). Unfortunately, Black Rabbit doesn’t come with any such luck for a viewer.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Following an altercation, Vince turns to his brother, Jake, for help. By agreeing to help, Jake invites a whirlwind of danger into his life.
Masked robbers with guns threaten a crowd; they shoot a man in the back, and he bleeds profusely. Vince runs a man over twice, killing him. Vince suffers an injury to his hand, causing blood to trickle down his arm. Men threaten Vince by using a knife to slice his pinky finger.
Some dresses reveal cleavage. We see a shirtless man. A woman pulls down her pants to urinate, though shadows obscure anything from the camera. There’s a reference to oral sex. We hear a couple of other crude references.
Someone snorts cocaine. People take shots of liquor and drink beer. Jake accuses another character of being hungover. Jake asks Vince if he is addicted to any drugs.
We hear the f-word just shy of 120 times, including a handful of instances preceded by “mother.” People utter the s-word roughly 20 times. We hear a couple of crudities (including the c-word) referencing male and female genitalia. “A–,” “b–ch,” “h—,” “d–n,” “pr-ck” and “p-ss” are used, too. God’s name is taken in vain nine times, including five instances with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is likewise misused once.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
‘Wizards Beyond Waverly Place’ is a fitting sequel series to Disney’s ‘Wizards of Waverly Place.’ And that can be a good or a bad thing.
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