Making a Scene: Jerrod Carmichael on His Reality Show’s Unexpected Happy Ending and How Exploiting Family Trauma Helped Him Heal

variety.com:

Ethan Shanfeld In the final episode of “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,” Jerrod Carmichael watches a scene from earlier in the show, in which he argues with his mother about his sexuality. “Even if God doesn’t accept homosexuality, that still doesn’t erase your heart,” says his mom, a devout Christian, while trying to connect with her son.

Then: “Whether you’re a murderer, sinner or chose to live the gay life, I love you just the way you are.” Carmichael doesn’t exactly take it the right way: “OK cool, my mom accepts me as she would accept Jeffrey Dahmer.” In an empty theater sitting next to the masked Anonymous, who may or may not be Bo Burnham, Carmichael eats popcorn and watches his life turn into content. “When we made the show, it was important to me to remain a pure subject,” says Carmichael in an interview for Variety‘s “Making a Scene.” “I didn’t want to be involved in creative meetings.

I didn’t want to think of my life as a season, or I didn’t want to think about these problems as having an arc.” As the HBO series turns cameras toward Carmichael’s most vulnerable moments — following him in therapy and while he’s cheating on his boyfriend Mike — he had to put a lot of faith in director Ari Katcher, who made sure he knew that the series would not just show “the likable sides” of its subject.