TVLine can exclusively reveal that Emmy Award-winning actor Glynn Turman (A Different World, The Wire, In Treatment) has been cast as Otis, father of Tichina Arnold‘s Tina Butler. He’ll appear as part of a two-episode arc during Season 7, and make his debut in Episode 6 (which is currently penciled in for early December).
CBS describes Otis as Tina’s “outgoing and likable father” who “drops by for a nice visit, and appears to be hale and hearty with good news: he has ditched his dreadful second wife, Loretta, and is a free man, ready to prowl. But upon close examination, all is not well. Otis can’t drive but insists on driving, he’s sneaking fried chicken, and his wife walked out because he refused to take good care of himself. It becomes clear that Loretta was the only person keeping Otis alive. What will the family do now?”
The website TVLine recently spoke with co-showrunner Mike Schiff about the importance of introducing Tina’s never-before-seen dad. “Of all the characters, Tina, over the past six seasons, is the person who seems to have had the least connections to anybody outside [of her immediate family],” he acknowledged. “There was the girl group [in Season 4], but family-wise, we haven’t seen anyone” — and Season 7 will remedy that.
“It turns out that when Tina’s mom died a few years ago, her dad Otis remarried a little quicker than she was comfortable with,” Schiff shared, “and she blamed the woman, who she insists took advantage of her father when he was at his most vulnerable. When Otis shows up without [Loretta], Tina is delighted… but it turns out that there is more to the story than she realized.”
Turman is perhaps best known to sitcom audiences for his role as Colonel Bradford Taylor in the NBC classic A Different World. He went on to portray Mayor Clarence Royce in the seminal HBO drama The Wire, and took home an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his work on fellow HBO series In Treatment.
The Neighborhood kicks off Season 7 on Monday, Oct. 21 (CBS, 8/7c). Arnold returns alongside fellow cast members Cedric the Entertainer (Calvin), Max Greenfield (Dave), Beth Behrs (Gemma), Marcel Spears (Marty), Sheaun McKinney (Malcolm), Hank Greenspan (Grover) and newly promoted series regular Skye Townsend (Courtney). The premiere will pick up shortly after the Season 6 finale, as Marty and Courtney return home with infant daughter Daphne, and new grandmother Tina discovers that “the baby apparently hates her,” per Schiff. “The baby is content with everybody else, but screams with her.”
Additionally, Paramount+ is in production on a Neighborhood spinoff, Crutch, starring Tracy Morgan. However, in a surprise twist, Morgan will not reprise his Season 4 role as Calvin’s wealthy brother Curtis. Instead, he’ll play a new character: Calvin’s cousin, Frank Crutchfield – or, as his friends call him, Crutch — “a Harlem widower whose empty nest plans are put on hold after his millennial son (Superior Donuts’ Jermaine Fowler) and free-spirited daughter (Snowfall’s Adrianna Mitchell) move back home,” according to the official logline.
No word yet on a release date.
Source: TV Line
