Tracy Morgan returns to series TV
One nice thing — and from a human standpoint perhaps the nicest thing — about “The Last O.G.,” a new TBS sitcom starring Tracy Morgan and airing at 10:30 p.m. Tuesdays, is that the fact that the actor nearly died in a 2014 auto accident is not evident on-screen.
Morgan is in good form here, funny and odd and as healthy as he’s ever seemed; he has the quality of being both a capable actor and helplessly himself, which is to say, he is never like anybody else. (I say this knowing little about his actual real self. This is just the vibe he puts out.)
Morgan, formerly of “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock,” plays Tray, who has spent 15 years in prison for dealing drugs and comes out with a vocation — to his self-described humble mind, he “might be the best chef the world has ever known” — and a mission: “It’s time for me to go out to the world and make it a better place with my sage advice.”
But the world has changed, too, and Tray’s old Brooklyn ’hood has been gentrified nearly beyond recognition. What’s more, at the halfway house been assigned to, he is told that every ex-con arrives home with a mission to make the world a better place with his sage advice.
“Too many mentors, not enough mentees,” says Mullins (Cedric the Entertainer), who runs the place. Mullins’ concept of the job is mostly to afflict his charges with standup and improv. Tray, for his part, having failed to find employment as a “head chef,” winds up working for his old drug boss, now running a coffee franchise.
Tray also finds that his old girlfriend, Shay (Tiffany Haddish), whom he had assumed would wait for him in spite of not having heard from her in 15 years, has moved up in the world, raising money from the rich to provide beds for the homeless.
On top of that, she’s gotten married, and on top of that, he’s a very white sort of white guy (Ryan Gaul as, what else, Josh), who writes TV copy for food personality Anthony Bourdain (“So when you think of Myanmar, don’t think of hateful, hardlined Buddhists or the fourth ‘Rambo’ movie — think of delectable deep dish pizza.”).
Most important, he learns that the twins Shay and Josh are raising (Taylor Mosby and Dante Hoag-land) are his biological children.
“The Last O.G.” has taken time to reach the screen. Created by Jordan Peele (of “Key and Peele” and “Get Out”) and John Carcieri (who wrote for “Eastbound & Down” and “Vice Principals”), it began at FX, before moving to TBS, jettisoning Carcieri as showrunner. (Peele became an Oscar-winning screenwriter and Haddish a star.)
Indeed, the series seems to be searching for an identity, trying on different looks as it goes.
The show is by turns sentimental and unseemly. Even when the show is disappointing, it somehow remains likable. Lines may fall flat, but there is enough chemistry among the players to keep “The Last O.G” decent, indecent company.