• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, October 15, 2024

In the premiere episode of Reba McEntire's new sitcom, “Happy’s Place,” two characters feel the need to comment on Reba’s race.

“What happened in there? You’re whiter than usual!” says an employee of Happy’s Place, the show’s titular tavern owned by Reba’s character, “Bobbie” (no last name provided).

The employee character -- “Takoda” (no last name) -- is reacting to the way Bobbie emerged from the bar’s back office after hearing some shocking news.

The remark is supposed to be light-hearted. But at the same time, offhand comments about a TV character’s whiteness have become as ubiquitous in TV comedy as references to penises and vaginas. They are just as unwelcome too.

The character making the remark, Takoda -- played by actor Tokala Black Elk -- is apparently Native American, although neither the character’s race nor ethnicity is specified in the premiere episode of “Happy’s Place” that I previewed on Monday. 

Episode One establishes the situation in this situation-comedy. Bobbie is the daughter of a long-time local tavernkeeper in Tennessee who has recently died.

He bequeathed the bar to Bobbie, who has worked in it all her life. But in the premiere episode, Bobbie’s lawyer shows up to inform her that her father’s will also stipulated that the business be split 50-50 with another heir, a half-sister Bobbie never knew she had.

Enter the half-sister. Played by Belissa Escobedo (pictured, left, with Reba, above), she is much younger than Bobbie. The news of this half-sister is what caused Bobbie to turn more white than usual. Ha, ha.

The sister is named Isabella, and there is no apparent reason to suggest she is non-white. But she feels the need to play a race card anyway when she implies in a conversation that a white woman should not complain about being denied opportunities.

Despite the uproarious laughter heard as background noise every time Reba opens her mouth, there was little to laugh at in the premiere of “Happy’s Place.” The “comedy” consists of little more than Reba making faces and yelling at everybody. 

If the Tennessee setting of “Happy’s Place” is meant to appeal to residents of the Volunteer State and the rest of the mid-South, then even they might take offense when Reba remarks on the old cliché that Tennesseans marry a lot younger than other people. Ha, ha.

Not only do Tennesseans marry young, they prefer whiskey to their morning coffee -- or so says Bobbie when she happily informs Isabella that “Tennessee coffee” is just another way of saying “whiskey.” Cue the laugh track. 

“Happy’s Place” premieres Friday, October 18, at 8 p.m. Eastern on NBC.