BEST MAN SERIES FEATURES A TURBULENT NON-BINARY COMING-OUT STORYLINE

Black icons reunite for this beloved franchise, and the new miniseries includes an LGBTQ+ arc.

Twenty-three years after the beloved movie The Best Man premiered, Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Sanaa Lathan, Regina Hall, Morris Chestnut, Melissa De Sousa, Harold Perrineau, and Terrance Howard have reunited for a Peacock series, The Best Man: The Final Chapters.

If you watched the original two films, all the familial and friend drama is back and at full force as the group prepares for the book Taye Diggs' character Harper wrote in the original film, Unfinished Business, is getting turned into a movie. We also meet LJ, the teenage child of Chesnut's character Lance Sullivan.

Light spoilers ahead...

Toward the beginning of the season, LJ comes out to Lance as nonbinary. Confusion ensues as many of the friends in their 50s can't wrap their heads around the concept, especially Lance. For the time the show spans, Lance refuses to use LJ's preferred pronouns of they/them and the group heatedly debates how to refer to LJ and how they should be referred to.

Lance, a former professional football player still grieving the death of his wife and clinging to his fame, is holding on tight to the masculine idea of who his child should be, desperate for them to follow in their athletic footsteps, and refuses to acknowledge LJ's nonbinary identity in any way. Eventually, their headbutting reaches a boiling point and in episode 7, LJ runs away.

As LGBTQ+ youth have an upsetting history of homelessness and self-harm, Lance assumes the worst and completely melts down the longer LJ's been gone. Lance visits his departed wife's grave and finally realizes that he's "failing our son." He asks God to "please help me understand LJ. Change me."

Finally, LJ is found at an LGBTQ+ friendly church. Lance sits in the pew next to his child and LJ emotionally shares their thoughts as they hold up a bible.

"The first thing I learned in this book was that God loves me," they begin, "except the real me wasn't welcome. If I'm not welcome in God's house or my own house, where do I go?" LJ goes on to say that this church saved their life. "How is it that God can love me unconditionally dad, but you can't?"

Finally, it breaks through to Lance, and his 180-degree turn is beautiful to witness.

Catch all this drama and more on The Best Man: The Final Chapters, available to stream now on Peacock. Watch the trailer below:

SOURCE: PRIDEDOT COM