USA TODAY US Edition

Morgan’s ‘Last O.G.’ is a first-rate waste of its talented cast

- Kelly Lawler Columnist

It’s often hard to tell if Tracy Morgan’s new TBS series, The Last O.G., is meant to be comedy or tragedy.

Created by Jordan Peele and John Carcieri, the show (premiering Tuesday, 10:30 ET/PT, ★★☆☆) finds the former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock star returning to a regular role on television after a harrowing car accident in 2014, and it also centers on a big return. Morgan’s character, Tray, is returning to his life in Brooklyn after being incarcerat­ed for 15 years, only to find that his girlfriend has married someone else, he had kids he never knew about and the New York borough has gentrified.

In promos, O.G. is being sold as a slapstick affair in the comedian’s trademark style, and the writers work too hard to add raunchy humor to a sober situa-

tion. But the biggest problem with O.G. is that Tray’s life is inherently tragic, and the series can’t find the right kind of humor in his plight.

The comedy has an overall sense of melancholy that drags it down and wastes its talented cast, especially Tiffany Haddish, one of the most exciting new voices in Hollywood, who’s relegated to the role of angry ex and is almost never given funny material. (It’s worth noting that the series, which has been in the works for years, was first planned for FX and filmed before Haddish’s star began to rise.)

When the series starts, Tray’s life is just the pits.

He went to jail because he refused to sell out a friend, who later became wealthy. His girlfriend, Shay (Haddish), was so angry that he was still dealing drugs that she dumped him, had his twins without telling him, and married another man who she claimed was their father.

When Tray gets out of prison, he takes up residence in a sad halfway house run by Mullins (Cedric the Entertaine­r), and struggles to find a job and fit into a world that moved on without him. His best friend is his cousin (Allen Maldonado), a child when he got locked up.

Trying to swing back and forth between the harsh realities of Tray’s new life and gags about his idiotic halfway housemates doesn’t really work.

The laughs are very few and far between, and the serious tone wins out most of the time. It feels as if a cast as talented as this one might be able to smooth out the uneven material, but the chemistry between them never clicks. Morgan hams it up in every scene, as does Cedric the Entertaine­r, but Haddish is mostly forced to yell at Tray, her kids and her new husband. It’s a far cry from her out-there performanc­e in Girls Trip.

The series can’t escape a certain odiousness in its humor that feels as out of date as Tray’s pop culture references. An episode featuring guest star Chrissy Metz ( This Is Us) reduces a talented actress to a repeated fat joke. In another episode, Tray tries to teach his son Shazad (Dante Hoagland) “how to be a man,” and it feels similarly misguided.

Watching O.G. involves waiting for something more. Even six episodes in, the series feels as shallow as the hipster coffee joint where Tray finally gets a job.

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 ??  ?? Tray (Tracy Morgan, right) hangs with his cousin, Bobby (Allen Maldonado), and kids, Amira (Taylor Mosby) and Shazad (Dante Hoagland), on “The Last O.G.”
Tray (Tracy Morgan, right) hangs with his cousin, Bobby (Allen Maldonado), and kids, Amira (Taylor Mosby) and Shazad (Dante Hoagland), on “The Last O.G.”
 ?? PHOTOS BY FRANCISCO ROMAN/TBS ?? Cedric the Entertaine­r is Mullins, who runs the halfway house where Tray lives.
PHOTOS BY FRANCISCO ROMAN/TBS Cedric the Entertaine­r is Mullins, who runs the halfway house where Tray lives.

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