Not engaging with the actual idea of religion is probably a smart one, but that also begs the question why Black-ish had to integrate a story about church into what’s really a story about Dre and Bow’s inability to say yes to anybody’s invitations in the neighborhood. To call this an anti-climatic episode is almost a compliment to the flat line, both in comedy and story, that “Churched” is. Instead, “Churched” goes for the lowest common denominator of punchlines: Ruby gets to yell and scream, Junior gets made fun of for being nerdy and whiter than the rest, and in the end, Dre and Ruby can’t figure out what church works for them. All the while, Dre and Bow keep insisting they want to find a church that works for them, even though they never actually discuss religion at all, and whether it’s right for them to introduce something like that to their children or not. Regardless of whether these cliches are true or not, Black-ish doesn’t really engage with them in any kind of way, lampooning religion through the entire episode.
White churches are all about repetition and quick services (Presbyterian churches, at least – this was not a Catholic mass), while black churches are loud, bombastic, and carry on for the entire day. I suppose there’s something to the lack of general distinction made between the two. However, they never mentioning how Christianity was forced on slaves in the first place, or how slaves had hidden “Invisible Churches” late in the evening… another conversation for another day, I suppose, one Black-ish abandons in favor of pumping out stereotypical jokes about “white churches” and “black churches.” There are a number of imbalanced elements in “Churched,” which centers around Bow and Dre’s attempts to get themselves excited to go to church on Sundays, opening with a summation on the importance of religion from slavery to civil rights. When an episode of Black-ish gets stuck between these things – or in the case of “Churched”, doesn’t really adhere to either – it feels like an installment without a point at all, limping through its third act on whatever recurring jokes it has running during that particular half hour. In the episode, Dre tries to read a bedtime story to Devante during a thunderstorm, but instead improvises a new story based on recent social and political issues in the United States.As a sitcom wanting to make poignant statements about race and culture, Black-ish tends to find itself in one of two positions: either doubling down on the perceived priorities of African-American culture, or trying to refute them in an attempt to define the Johnson family as a progressive example of upscale black families. On March 10, 2018, it was officially announced that the network had no plans to air the episode. An ABC spokesperson said that there "were creative differences we were unable to resolve". USA Today stated that the episode "was apparently too political for the network".
However on February 22, 2018, ABC announced that the episode would be pulled from the schedule and that a repeat of a past episode would air instead. The fourteenth episode of the season, titled "Please, Baby, Please", was shot in November 2017, and originally scheduled to air on February 27, 2018.
Austin & Berlin Gross as Devante Johnson.
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