Greenleaf tackles tough subjects
It’s a red light for Greenleaf on Wednesday night, as the OWN melodrama airs its midseason finale before going on hiatus.
The series, about a predominantly black megachurch and the family that runs it, rolls out an episode titled And the Sparks Fly Upward. In it, eldest son Jacob (Lamman Rucker) makes rival pastor Basie Skanks (Jason Dirden) an offer to clear his debt and gain power.
Keith David stars as bishop James Greenleaf, while Lynn Whitfield plays his manipulative wife, Lady Mae.
In an interview with Parade, Whitfield spoke about the importance of the show’s sexual abuse storylines and gay characters.
“I don’t think that it’s only important to get it out to the black community — I think they’re important topics in a Christian community, in a community of family. Funny enough though, despite what Donald Trump has to say and the way African-American people are portrayed so often in media, African-American people can have a leaning to be very conservative,” she said.
“Not in their politics, but in the way they live their lives and the way that they’re able to accept new ideas or things that are enigmatic to some ... I think that molestation within families has very little to do with race and much more just to do with the human condition.”
Greenleaf premièred last June to more than three million U.S. viewers — it was the best series debut ever for the fresh-faced cable network. Ratings this season have dipped since then, but are holding steady with around 1.3 million U.S viewers per episode.
“We were trying to do so many different things. Trying, trying and trying things all the time,” Oprah Winfrey told The Associated Press in March.
“When this worked, I thought, ‘OK, I now see that when you move and operate specifically from the core of what you believe is right, it works.’”
The media mogul is an executive producer of the series and acts in the recurring role of Mavis McCready.