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Clean Slate

 

A trans woman returns to her Alabama home to mend her frayed relationship with her estranged father in the final sitcom from the late NORMAN LEAR

For many years it was a widely accepted “fact” that the cells in the human body die off and are replaced with new cells every seven to 10 years, thus essentially creating an effectively new human with the turn of each decade. While this has since been debunked as a gross exaggeration of actuality (see the 2019 Discovery.com article titled “Does your body really replace itself every seven years?” for more details), the truth of the matter is that humans do change. Many of our cells are replaced within this time frame, while others are with us throughout our entire lives — but not all change is incurred strictly on a cellular level.

Clean Slate on Prime Video: Pictured: Desiree (Laverne Cox) and Mack (Jay Wilkison),
a former prison inmate who’s her dad’s righthand man at his Slate Family Car Wash.
© Amazon Content Services LLC

Clean Slate, a new Amazon Original series, follows an aging father who must accept a greater change than he ever imagined possible when his child returns home after nearly 23 years away. Once known to her dad as Desmond, the now middle-aged Desiree (Laverne Cox, Orange Is the New Black) arrives on Harry Slate’s (comedian George Wallace) Alabama porch with some news: the child he once knew as his son is a trans woman, and she has come home to heal their long-decaying relationship. What follows is a comedic eight-episode journey steeped in themes pertaining to human rights, personal expression, preconceived notions, family bonds and generational trauma.

Starring American actress and LGBTQIA+ activist Cox, the half-hour sitcom created by Norman Lear (All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, etc.) was first developed for Peacock in 2020. However, following the pandemic, Lear’s death in 2023 and various other industry-related changes, the series landed with Amazon, where Lear’s production company, Act III Productions, is working with Sony Pictures Television on both Clean Slate and a new Mexican American-driven story titled Loteria.

Clean Slate on Prime Video: Pictured: Family Matters alum Telma Hopkins plays Ella, pictured with Henry (George Wallace).
© Amazon Content Services LLC

One thing that makes Clean Slate particularly unique to the television world is that it was co-written by its stars, Cox and Wallace, alongside writer, producer and actor Dan Ewen (Dear Santa), who serves as series showrunner.

For Lear’s part, prior to his December 2023 death from heart failure at 101 years old, the TV icon acted as co-producer on Clean Slate, working closely with executive producer Cox, who told Entertainment Weekly that the series is classic Lear fare in that it does not shy away from tough topics or real, palpable emotion.

“[It’s] very much a tribute to the legacy of Norman Lear and tackling intense issues,” said Cox, “but doing it in a way that’s accessible and in a way that doesn’t point a finger at you or preach to you.”

In the same interview, Cox also touched on the elements of the show that make it most compassionate, placing family and human experience at the heart of the conversation.

“Ultimately, this show is about love,” Cox stipulated. “This show is about family, and trying to figure out how to connect after being away from each other and figuring out how to connect across generations and experiences.”

About her character, Cox shared that, “Desiree has gone and lived. She’s grown up in New York and become a very different person beyond her gender identity . . . It’s really about that and this father who loves his daughter unconditionally.”

Some may wonder, though, that if Desiree has become the woman she always knew she was without her father, then why return home to her Southern-born-and-bred, car wash-owning dad at all? The answer: profound love and the resolution of past trauma.

Desiree mentions in the pilot that she has spent time in therapy reflecting upon all the emotionally unavailable men she has dated and finally came to terms with the fact that she needs to repair her relationship with the first and most impactful “emotionally unavailable” man in her life: her dad.

“We discover throughout the series that there are other reasons why she’s come back home, as well,” Cox added coyly in her interview with EW.

And while the bulk of the series does focus on that tumultuous relationship between parent and child, Cox and Wallace are supported by a top-tier cast that includes Jay Wilkison (Nashville) as Harry’s wise, wisecracking car wash attendant, Mack, who is a former inmate and single father to 10-year-old Opal (Norah Murphy, A Friend of the Family), who also helps out at Clean Slate car wash. There’s also D.K. Uzoukwu (The Choir) as the neighbourhood church’s closeted choir director, Louis, a childhood friend of Desiree who provides a safe space for her.

They are subsequently joined on screen by Phillip Garcia (Sprung), Zoe Vatekeh (The Sacrament), Shena Verrett (Origin), Pat Yeary (The Righteous Gemstones), Keith Arthur Bolden (Cobra Kai), Jojo Brown (Single Drunk Female), Telma Hopkins (Family Matters) and Amari K. Jones (The Quad).

Clean Slate begins streaming Thursday, February 6, on Prime Video

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