Critic Reviews

Season two is both funny and critical, transcending its feel-good genre.

Quibbles aside, UnPrisoned is the type of show that's still a rarity on TV: An intimate, heartfelt comedy about one family's piece of the Black experience.

“UnPrisoned” achieves what few shows do—showing both the importance and limitations of personal agency. Oh, and it’s funny too.

On the Hulu sitcom “UnPrisoned,” Washington’s back to the angle that suits her best — and at the heart of a sweetly intended show of disarming quality.

“UnPrisoned” is not so much a show about trauma or healing. Its characters are more than the worst things they’ve experienced, even as their pasts remain present. It’s a show about family, growth, and Black joy and it’s a damn good one.

UnPrisoned is a funny show that deals with some pretty heavy generational issues, and while it still rides on the fantastic chemistry between Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo, the rest of the cast is getting some meaty material, as well.

The series has a terrific snap to it, with an ear attuned to banter that touches on — and sometimes deflects — deeper issues. The combination works because it’s not glib, but a coping mechanism for both. ... The real revelation here is Washington, who is looser than ever.

Washington is brilliant as the obligatory Therapist Who Has Yet to Heal Thyself. And the father-daughter dynamic between Washington’s Paige and Lindo’s Edwin is palpable and complex. The better we get to know Paige, the more we’re invested in her happiness.

UnPrisoned feels at times like a series made of up of wrong choices on the way to finding the right one. But even in its flaws — or maybe because of them — the series finds intriguing depth in the messiness of lived experience, and the clear-eyed compassion of someone who’s worked through enough of it to grasp the difference between what people owe one another and what we want to provide for one another, between excusing someone’s bad behavior and forgiving it, between being right and being free.

Even when things can start to feel a little scattered around its leads and a quick succession of sudden developments near the end don’t quite have the impact they should, the season holds together because of the pure charisma at its center.