Soul Food: Season 3

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Product Description ------------------- Based on the critically-accled film of the same name, SOUL FOOD - THE SERIES reunites the Joseph family in an hour-long drama series, which chronicles the lives of a tight-knit African American family living in Chicago. The series explores, in an honest and touching way, the relationship between three sisters, the men in their lives and their children. The Joseph family faces everyday struggles to which all families can relate. SOUL FOOD is not your typical family… it is simply the drama of a family. .com ---- Soul Food - The Third Season wastes no time in diving into sex, family squabbles, and workplace conflicts--the issues that this show wrestles with so very well. As the season begins, Kenny (Rockmond Dunbar, Prison Break) and Maxine (Vanessa Williams, Melrose Place) have separated and fight bitterly, to the anguish of their oldest son Ahmad (Aaron Meeks); Teri (Nicole Ari Parker, Brown Sugar) is offered a partner position at her former law firm when a powerful New York firm (run by Faye Dunaway, her face a y of too much plastic surgery)--but what she thought would be her dream job proves full of treacherous compromises; Damon (Boris Kodjoe, Madea's Family Reunion), unable to face his past troubles, slips into alcoholism; and while the marriage of Bird (Malinda Williams, First Sunday) and Lem (Darrin Dewitt Henson, Stomp the Yard) seems to have found a steady groove, Bird's potential career as a TV celebrity (and the new relationships that result) threatens that stability, as does a dark figure from her past. Good writing is what makes the turbulent lives of these three sisters and their husbands, sons, and lovers seem endlessly rich. Occasionally there's a forced storyline--for example, Damon is literally haunted by his dead ex-girlfriend--but even that uncharacteristic plot came to a graceful conclusion. If there's a weakness, it's that several conflicts are resolved too quickly; some of the strongest material comes from longer character arcs. There are a number of knockout guests (including Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow, and particularly Kimberly Elise, Diary of a Mad Black Woman), but it's the regular cast that gives this show its emotional heft; even comic sequences, such as when Ahmad keeps catching his parents having sex, are treated with grounded emotion. At its best, Soul Food offers a more honest depiction of how men and women relate than you'll find almost anywhere on television; the give and take of marriage, with its necessary frustrations and unexpected rewards, is shown in all its messy glory. The Third Season contains 20 episodes from 2002 and 2003, half of which were initially released as the show's fourth season. --Bret Fetzer