Continuing the sitcom’s strong start to its sophomore season, the original The Wonder Years series, which centered around Kevin Arnold and his middle-class family as he grew up in the suburbs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, first premiered on ABC, The Wonder Years reboot is bringing back the nostalgia of the original with an added twist. The Wonder Years reboot follows the Black Williams family in the newly-integrated Montgomery in the 1960s.
Due to the setting and time period, The Wonder Years reboot often approaches racial issues that affected Black people of the time, many of which still affect the community today. Season 2, episode 4, “Blockbusting” dealt with the subject of the same name through the guest star Donald Faison ing The Wonder Years reboot cast as real-estate agent Terrence. Meanwhile, in the world of middle school, Dean had a sleepover that led to an interesting crush as well as a physical fight between him and one of his best friends. Overall, The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4 was another important, entertaining episode.
Dean Had Never Been To Brad’s House
One of the biggest character reveals in The Wonder Years season 2, episode 4 was that Dean had never been to Brad’s house despite Brad being one of his best friends. Outside the Williams family, there are only three other main cast in The Wonder Years reboot, all three of them being Dean’s friends–Cory, Keisa, and Brad. While Cory and Keisa have been shown at Dean’s house and vice versa, The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4 is the first time Dean goes over to Brad’s house, done because of a teasing suggestion Keisa made, proving she still hasn’t forgiven Dean for telling Broderick about them.
Brad is still Dean’s only white friend, so while it would have been easy to assume in 2023 that he’d gone to his friend’s house before, the narration from Don Cheadle as Adult Dean in The Wonder Years Reboot season 2, episode 4 is a reminder of why that wasn't the case. As he put it, “Black and white folks had only been eating in the same restaurants for a couple of years. We weren’t ready to stay in each other’s houses.” Yet, that’s exactly what Dean did through a sleepover at the Hitman house that highlighted both their similarities and differences as families.
Dean Had A Crush On Brad’s Mom
When Dean visits Brad’s house for the first time in The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4, he gets to see that, despite their differing races and backgrounds, their families really aren’t all that different, especially because the Hitmans don’t want Dean to feel like he doesn’t belong. In making sure Dean felt equal through a goodnight kiss on the lips, Dean quickly develops a crush on Brad’s mom, Judy Hitman. The narration also reveals that this started a trend of crushes on older women for Dean, which will likely be comically explored throughout the series.
In The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4, Judy was played by Lindsay Sloane, who had also appeared in the original series in seasons 5 and 6 as Kevin’s high school friend, Alice. This marks the first time an original The Wonder Years star has appeared in the reboot, though Winnie and her older brother, Brian, whose death was mentioned in the original pilot, appear in a picture that Dean’s older brother, Bruce, had from Vietnam. It was interesting to see Sloane in The Wonder Years reboot, which served as both a nod to the original and a ing of the torch.
Brad’s Family Was The First Jewish Family To Move Into Their Neighborhood
It didn’t take long for Brad to find out about Dean’s crush on his mother in The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4. Unfortunately, Dean taunted him by telling him that if something happened to his dad, he could one day marry Judy and become Brad’s new father, leading the two eighth graders to get into a physical fight and their moms to be sent to the principal’s office. There, Lillian and Judy had a talk that further paralleled the experiences their two families have gone through because of their backgrounds.
The Williams had been considering being the first Black family to integrate the neighborhood Brad’s family lived in, but Judy informed Lillian that their real-estate agent was trying to use them for blockbusting. Judy also revealed to Lillian that the Hitmans were the first Jewish family to move into their neighborhood and faced quite a bit of discrimination in the process. The important parallels between the Williams and Hitmans and the Black and Jewish communities were first explored in The Wonder Years reboot season 1, episode 11, “Brad Mitzvah,” and season 2, episode 4 continues this.
The Williams & The Longs Were Competitive With Each Other
While neither the Williams nor the Longs became the first Black family to integrate the white neighborhood despite guest star Faison’s and insistence, it did cause competition between the families in The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4. Terrence had stressed the importance of upward mobility for the Black community and that it would take a respectable family to do the “hard work” of integration. This caused the Williams and the Longs, or more specifically Bill and Cliff, to go head-to-head to prove who the better candidates were. Fortunately, Bill and Cliff ended up reing forces to confront Terrence and maintain their friendship with each other.
Bill Never Sold The Williams Family Home
Along with the reveal that the Williams decided not to move out of their neighborhood and into Brad’s in The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4 came another reveal about their future through Cheadle’s narration. Adult Dean shared that Bill would never sell the Williams family home, so viewers can expect the familiar setting to stay the same. However, he also said that the neighborhood was integrated regardless because white families started moving in through gentrification. This opens the door for another important issue and storyline to be included in The Wonder Years reboot.
Brad’s Family Were The Williams’s First White Guests
At the end of The Wonder Years reboot season 2, episode 4, the Williams had the Hitmans over at their house for the first time. While this episode marked the first time the two families visited each other, it was also the first time the Williams had white guests at their house. This was a big moment for both families and represented change and progress, but it also served as a reminder for viewers of how segregated things still were in Montgomery at the time. While The Wonder Years reboot has shown schools, workplaces, and other areas as integrated, this was the first time it was extended to home life.