Edgy yet wholesome.
The warmhearted, consistently funny and thoroughly engaging Prime Video series “Clean Slate” manages to be both of these things, blending a storyline with decidedly forward-thinking, lovely and tolerant messaging with traditional, sentimental and at times even corny comedy straight out of the 1980s sitcom playbook.
The gifted and versatile Laverne Cox (“Orange Is the New Black”) teams with the legendary stand-up comic George Wallace to make a dynamic daughter-father team. Wallace is Mobile, Alabama, car-wash owner Harry Slate, who is brimming with excitement to reconnect with estranged offspring after a 23-year absence, only to open the door to his home and learn she is now a proud trans woman. She explains to her father, “Dad, I’m your daughter, Desiree. … It’s Desiree. I’ve always been Desiree. Clearly, we have a lot of catching up to do. May I come in?”
Wearing his old-school Joe Namath Alabama football jersey and clinging to his old-school ways, Harry is initially taken aback, and it takes him some time to adjust (Desiree puts out a “Pronoun Jar” and charges Harry five bucks every time he slips up) — but one of the things I admired about the series is seeing how even before Harry fully understands and embraces his daughter’s true identity, and even though Desiree is working through her own issues with men who have disappointed her, starting with her father, the love between the two of them shines through.
As Desiree moves into her childhood home with Harry and the two of them work on their relationship, “Clean Slate” brings the obligatory roster of Quipping Supporting Players into the mix, and it’s an instantly likable cast.
D.K. Uzoukwo has a low-key charm as Desiree’s childhood best friend Louis, the local choir director who has yet to come out of the closet, while reliable veteran hand Telma Hopkins (one of the members of Dawn in Tony Orlando and Dawn, and also a regular on “Family Matters”) is Louis’ mother, Ella, who has known Harry for longer than either of them care to admit.
Jay Wilkinson pours on the syrupy charm as Mack, who spend 10 years as an imprisoned man and is now doing his best to walk the straight and narrow as Harry’s right-hand man at the car wash and, more important, as a single dad to precocious tween daughter Opal (Norah Murphy), and Opal is precocious because Sitcom Law says 80% of all tweens must be precocious, while the other 20% must be lovably dim.
The credits for “Clean Slate” list the executive producers as Brent Miller, Simran Baidwan, Dan Ewen, Laverne Cox and George Wallace — and the late great Norman Lear, who gave us “All in the Family,” “Maude,” “Sanford and Son,” “Good Times” and many other series that took on political and social issues while providing a treasure trove of memorable laughs as well. Prior to the premiere episode, a quote from Lear appears on the screen: “The laughter I’ve enjoyed most is laughter that has brought numbers of us together.”
“Clean Slate” has that magic formula.