Twenty-three years after leaving, Desiree Scott (Laverne Cox) returns to her family home in small town Alabama in search of a refuge. Her life in New York has imploded, taking her art gallery, her livelihood, and her toxic relationship along with it, and she needs the space to recover and recenter. She arrives at her father’s home without warning — an email, scant on details notwithstanding — and though Harry (George Wallace) is taken aback, he welcomes her back into the family home.
“I thought you had a son,” the neighbor notes.
“So did I,” Harry retorts, as he drags Desiree’s luggage inside.
Soon, the truth of what kept Desiree away from home becomes clear. Desiree recalls having to run from school everyday to avoid getting beat up for being too feminine. She hid in the library, aided by Mrs. Phipps, the one person who showed her any kindness. Harry, meanwhile, was oblivious: After losing his wife to cancer, Harry focused almost exclusively on being a good financial provider, eschewing his responsibilities to protect and support Desiree emotionally. Suddenly, even a 23 year absence doesn’t seem nearly long enough. But as old and gruff as Harry is, he refuses to let this opportunity to know his child pass him by again. His attempts aren’t always successful but he’s finally fighting for his daughter.
Cox shines as Desiree and imbues the character with her natural effervescence. After her hilarious turn on A Black Lady Sketch Show, I’ve longed to see Laverne Cox in more comedies. The juxtaposition of the always impeccably styled Cox with the physical aspects of her comedic performance — like her collapsing in a broken chair after she arrives home — always leave me laughing. She and Wallace play well off each other, with her responding to his curmudgeonly behavior and him responding in dismay over whatever new aged thing Desiree brings into the house.
“Okay, there’s one other thing I need to tell you and this is hard for me to say,” Desiree admits, pausing to collect herself before adding, “Dad, I’m a vegetarian.”
“Say what now?! You’re what?” Harry yells, seemingly more bothered that his child believes “meat is murder” than that she’s trans. “That’s some bullshit!”
The Alabama that Desiree left as a 17 year old isn’t the one she finds when she returns. She reconnects with her childhood best friend and closeted choir director, Louis (D.K. Uzoukwu). She strikes up an easy rapport with Mack (Jay Wilkison), one of Harry’s employees, and his precocious young daughter, Opal (Norah Murphy). The chemistry between Mack and Desiree is palpable and their relationship quickly turns into a “will they, won’t they” situation. Louis even introduces Desiree to queer Mobile which, though not immediately impressive, is a far cry from the days where she felt so alone.
All in all, south Alabama seems idyllic: Only the church pastor takes issue with Desiree’s presence and his entire congregation — led by Harry and Louis’ mom, Ella (a scene stealing Telma Hopkins) — rises up to fight back.
As a queer girl who grew up in the South, I’ve always been sensitive to portrayals of the region, particularly when it comes to LGBT people. The South is hella queer: according to the Williams Institute, a plurality of LGBT adults (36%) live in the South and a majority of black LGBT people (51%) make the region their home. Contrary to popular misconceptions, there is community here and there is acceptance. I smiled knowingly as Clean Slate hit on Southern platitudes and traditions — the plastic-shrouded furniture, the church rumor mill, the seriousness of football rivalries, Souls to the Polls, the Piggly Wiggly, etc. — that have been part of my life but I’ve rarely seen depicted on-screen.
That said, I found Clean Slate‘s anodyne portrayal of Southern Alabama to be discordant, not just from the Alabama that exists today — where the governor continues to push anti-trans legislation — but from the Alabama that Desiree recalls from her youth. Are we to believe that in 23 years, everyone in town evolved on trans issues except Harry? Are we to believe that the same community that embraces Desiree wholeheartedly, wouldn’t welcome Louis’ official coming out? I would’ve loved to see a storyline that gives Desiree the opportunity to confront one of her bullies and move towards healing that childhood trauma. The show undermines its own storytelling by making Desiree’s return so amicable.
As one of the last projects before his death, I wanted Clean Slate to fully embrace the complexity of Norman Lear’s past work. Those shows held a mirror up to society and showed us who we are, warts and all. His work didn’t shy away from conflict, it put conflict front and center, in hopes that his characters and his audience could learn from it. As Kathryn Van Arendonk wrote upon his death, “this was Lear’s gift, his remarkable ability to embrace a conflict without abandoning a fundamental optimism about what that conflict could create. In Lear’s conception of culture and democracy, the fight was the thing we shared.”
Likewise, Lear understood that, at its best, humor comes coupled with other emotions. We laughed while watching One Day at a Time but we also cried when Elena confronted her homophobic father or when Penelope grappled with her PTSD. Lear’s shows found a balance between the comedic and the dramatic. As he wrote in his memoir, “an audience is entertained when it’s involved to the point of laughter or tears—ideally, both.”
But Clean Slate doesn’t engage on either front. It eschews the dramatic and rests almost entirely on the comedic. It bypasses chances to deepen our understanding of the characters and their circumstances. Moreover, Clean Slate is not interested in a fight. One episode is set on Election Day and the mostly black voters are subjected to malfunctioning voting machines and abruptly closed polling locations, but the focus is more on overcoming the hurdles than decrying the voter suppression that led to the hurdles in the first place. In another episode, Desiree casually mentions passing her driving test ahead of an outing with Louis in gay Mobile. There’s nary a mention of the difficulty that Desiree would face, as a trans woman, acquiring a license in Alabama. I’m hard-pressed to recall a show that is as committed to avoiding conflict as Clean Slate.
That said, I found myself wondering if that was ultimately the point. Is Clean Slate doing something subversive and groundbreaking by turning Desiree’s transness into a virtual non-issue? I watched Clean Slate with hopes that it’d be the next All in the Family but instead it’s a new version of Will & Grace, shifting the conversation on trans issues without upsetting the audience. Maybe we’re already embroiled in too much conflict in our daily lives and it’s okay for Clean Slate to be an eight episode refuge.
Clean Slate is now streaming on Prime Video.
