*I will try very, very hard to avoid them, but there will be light spoilers here.*
1. Who set the fire???
2. Does anyone else say “Here comes a little fire” to themselves whenever there’s a confrontation?
3. No?
4. A first date to a junkyard van? Really? Who does that? Are junkyard vans the awkward white teenager’s Cheesecake Factory?
5. I love Kerry Washington with all my heart, but why does it always seem like she’s standing in front of a strong-ass fan?
6. Did Kerry Washington’s Strong-Ass Fan start the fire???
7. Or fan the flames?
8. Is putting Ritz crackers in meatloaf an actual thing?
9. Why did they act like she discovered fire when she just added some crackers to ground beef? Had they ever had soup before?
10. Also, she did like 3821983 fireable things in the first two weeks working at that house, so why wasn’t she just fired then?
11. Is white guilt that powerful?
12. Did Reese Witherspoon’s White Guilt become sentient and start the fire???
13. Why are all the kids on the show so small?
14. Including the black boyfriend, who’s apparently a star quarterback at a big high school despite being the size of a mailbox?
15. And if it’s supposed to be 1997, why does he have a high top fade—which went out of style in like 1991 and didn’t come back until like yesterday?
(And don’t reply with “Shaker Heights is a suburb and suburban black kids in Ohio might have been slow with trends” BECAUSE SHAKER HEIGHTS IS LITERALLY AN EYELASH FROM CLEVELAND AND CLEVELAND IS BLACK AS FUCK AND ONLY TWO HOURS FROM NOTORIOUSLY ANTIFASHIONABLE PITTSBURGH AND EVEN WE’D LEFT THE HIGH TOP FADES AND HAMMER PANTS IN 1992.)
16. DID BLACK BOYFRIEND’S ANACHRONISTIC HAIR START THE FIRE???
17. And in the scene where he did you-know-what with whatshername for the first time, where was the limo driver?
18. The food at that Chinese restaurant is definitely terrible, right?
19. Would you eat there?
20. And the subplot with the baby and the mom and the other mom, can that actually happen in real life?
21. Where a person who did what she did can sue, a year later, to get her back? (Don’t tell me what happens on the show. I’m genuinely curious if that can actually happen.)
22. SO THAT’S WHERE JESSE WILLIAMS HAS BEEN FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS? (Forgive me but I don’t watch Grey’s.)
23. I know she’s just a teenage girl who’s been through a lot, but Pearl is kinda trash, right? Or at least trash-adjacent?
24. Little outcast girl has the most personality of all the kids and the least friends, which is less a question and more a sobering commentary on the soul-crippling nature of pre-millennial adolescent interpersonal dynamics, huh?
25. Is Reese Witherspoon the LeBron James of Reese Witherspoons?
26. There are a lot of black kids at that school, but none in the actual neighborhoods, so are those high school black kids just holograms?
27. Even for 1997, that has to be America’s biggest and best $300 a month apartment, right?
28. And speaking of things that were things in 1997, “so...call us African-American now” is the worst idea we (black people) have ever had, isn’t it?
29. Even worse than lightskint replacement Harriet on Family Matters, right?
30. DID LIGHTSKINT REPLACEMENT HARRIET START THE FIRE???