On My Block

Main characters are Mexican, Black, and Afro-Latino teens living in the fictional town of Freeridge in South Central Los Angeles, where gang conflict serves as an unfortunate constant in their lives. Unlike most mainstream depictions of gang life, On My Block humanizes its cast by showing how teens who live in a dangerous area multitask between safety and other universal issues: dating, sex, friendships, family life. Post-traumatic stress disorder is sensitively explored. The show's inclusiveness improves season after season; while early ones can skew male-centric and the sole character with curves is used as a punchline, seasons 3 and 4 give that same character more depth, a story arc, and romance. In a standout performance, Peggy Blow plays a colorful grandmother who smokes weed, helps her grandson and his friends launder money, and develops a beautiful friendship with lonely teen Jamal. Their intergenerational camaraderie grows increasingly heartfelt across all four seasons. Diverse family units, including a positive relationship between Monse and her single dad (and subplot as Monse tries to reconnect with her White, upwardly mobile mother); Cesar and his older brother Oscar who fend for themselves (except when their dad returns to complicate matters); and the multigenerational Martinez household.

Violence is intermittent and often gang-related. Several scenes of men being beaten and kicked to be "jumped in" to a gang; gunfire erupts regularly (the friends make a game of trying to guess the caliber of the gun from the sound); a man chokes a teen for perceived disrespect (but lets him go once he finds out his connection to a gang); suicide (not depicted but family members grapple with the loss); gang-related murder of an important character (gunshots are heard, then cuts to a scene of him bleeding out).

Teens kiss, sometimes passionately, and refer to offscreen sex as "hitting it" or "hooking up." Men catcall a young girl and refer to her "boobs" and "cha cha bingos" while she crosses her arms and looks uncomfortable. Two teens are having a secret physical affair. Friends speculate on whether a woman is secretly trans; they say she has a "dangler." A boy tells a girl that if she wants to "sit on" his face, she has to stop talking first. A teen masturbates with a sock and is interrupted by his grandmother. Later seasons, when the characters are older teens, discuss sex often, but little is shown onscreen beyond making out and mimed actions and occasional partial nudity. One couple is comedically depicted as sex-obsessed (i.e. loudly having sex from another room as parents exchange horrified looks or making out on a dance floor as their friend scrambles to get away). A threesome is referenced but is revealed to have just been kissing. One character dates several classmates concurrently, sometimes lying to them, but the sex is always consensual.

Cursing includes "hell," "damn," "goddammit"; a man calls a woman a "bitch" after she breaks up with him, a woman calls her male friends "bitches" when she's annoyed with them. Other language: "pissed," "mofo," "d--k."

Teens smoke pot from joints, bongs, and pipes and drink alcohol at parties. Middle schoolers drink beer. Two teens drink something from bags on a porch, trying to appear as if they're drinking beers. When asked, they admit it's Gatorade. A grandmother smokes pot with her grandson, instructing him to "Hold it," (the smoke) in order to relax him enough to talk about a sensitive subject. In Season 4, weed is smoked consistently by someone with cancer; she has a friend sneak her comically large stash into the hospital. Following two separate deaths, weed and alcohol are used as celebratory send-offs.

Parents need to know that On My Block is a series about four friends growing up in Freeridge, a fictional area in South Central Los Angeles. The friends are loving and supportive of one another and their flaws, but their surroundings are challenging: Several scenes show men being "jumped in" to gangs by being beaten and kicked as teens walk by; gunfire is so frequent that friends make a game of guessing a bullet's caliber; and important characters die by gun violence. Crucially, the series humanizes its Black and Latino characters, no doubt aided by the almost all Black and Latino writers who developed them. Sex is referred to as "hitting it" and "hooking up" and is commonly referenced along with masturbation and "blue balls." In later seasons, main characters become more sexually active. Passionate kissing, loud sex that's heard but not seen, and other hormonal situations are often exaggerated and played for comedy. A boy talks about a girl wanting to "sit on" his face. Men catcall a young girl and talk about her breasts; she crosses her arms and looks uncomfortable. Teens frequently smoke pot and drink from red Solo cups and beer cans; two friends drink something from brown bags to pretend they're having beer (it's really Gatorade). Language includes "hell," "damn," "goddammit," and the word "bitch" used both affectionately and as an insult. Content matures across the series' four seasons, with subplots about deaths, trauma, grief, pregnancy, drugs, cancer, and suicide. But such heavy themes are more than offset by the show's wacky sense of humor and obvious love between friends and family members.