Few modern sitcoms have built out a world quite like Kenya Barris did with the Johnsons. What began as one family comedy on ABC grew into three connected series, each looking at the same family from a different angle — the present, the future, and the past. If you're starting from scratch, here's how it all fits together.
Start here: black-ish (2014–2022)
Dre Johnson (Anthony Anderson) is an ad executive who has made it — big house, good job, four kids — and is quietly terrified that his family's success is costing them their sense of identity. Opposite him, Tracee Ellis Ross's Bow is the show's secret weapon: a doctor, a mom, and the sharpest comic presence in the house. Over eight seasons, black-ish mixed classic family-sitcom setups with frank, funny conversations about race, class, and parenting that most network comedies wouldn't touch.
black-ish is the rare sitcom that asked big questions at the dinner table and still remembered to be funny.
Then: grown-ish (2018–2024)
The first spin-off follows eldest daughter Zoey (Yara Shahidi) as she leaves home for college and discovers that being a Johnson doesn't prepare you for everything. It's a looser, younger show — more about friendships, relationships, and figuring out who you are — and in its later seasons the focus shifts to her brother Junior as he takes his own turn at campus life. Watch it after you've gotten a few seasons of black-ish under your belt, so Zoey's departure from home actually stings.
Finally: mixed-ish (2019–2021)
The prequel rewinds to the 1980s to tell the story of young Rainbow, growing up in a mixed-race family that has just left a commune for the suburbs. Narrated by adult Bow, it fills in the backstory behind one of black-ish's best characters and explains a lot about the parent she became. It ran just two seasons, which makes it an easy, rewarding capstone once you know the Johnsons well.
The short version
Watch black-ish first, start grown-ish once Zoey heads off to college, and save mixed-ish for last. Together they add up to one of the most ambitious family stories network TV has told in years.