For this month with Binge-Watching in the Nonahood, I wanted to review something that’s a little different than the shows I normally review in this column. I wanted to talk about Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk, a web series that premieres on Facebook Watch every Monday, completely free to watch. Red Table Talk has a talk-show format, where Jada, often accompanied by her mother “Gammy” and her daughter Willow, have guests and bring to light some of those tough conversations that normally are shoved under the rug. On some lighter episodes, they also talk about everyday life matters, relationships, and breaking bad habits. This is legitimately one of the first talk shows I’ve enjoyed watching and look forward to seeing new episodes every week. To give you a taste of what the series has to offer, I’m choosing in this review to focus on the episode “Will Smith’s Emergency Family Meeting,” where Will calls the entire family for a meeting at the so-called “Red Table” where Jada normally interviews guests.

The episode begins with Will, quite similar to every dad ever, yelling for his kids to come down from their rooms in order to call a family meeting. Will brings up the “circle of safety” that he enacted with his family when his kids were growing up, where they can reveal or say anything they needed to without getting in trouble, and says they’re going to employ that for this meeting at the Red Table. When everyone’s finally situated at the table, they begin to dive into their eating habits and how it affects their overall lifestyles. It was enlightening to see how open the family was about their lifestyles and how food affected each family member differently in all aspects. Even though the family all appear healthy and fit, they reveal so many issues that they’ve had with food and problems with their digestive systems. There was a picture that went viral of Jada, Gammy, and Willow after a workout, where all three generations looked absolutely amazing, showcasing their abs, but Willow reveals she felt absolutely awful even though she was eating well and exercising often.

Later on in the show, they bring in a nutritionist who asks them 15 personal, key questions that they must answer truthfully, hence the “circle of safety” for Will and Jada’s kids. Some of the questions touch on sleep schedules, medication, alcohol use, going to the bathroom, and more – a lot of questions we’d all be scared or uncomfortable to answer in front of our parents, our kids, and our in-laws. It was wonderful to see the Smith family so open to talking about their bad habits together and working through them together in order to become healthier humans. It’s so clear that they are a strong family unit, which enables them to achieve all of the amazing things they do because they are each other’s rock-hard support system. At the end of the episode, they all plan to take medical tests that tell them how to improve their body health, which will be saved for an episode later on in the season. 

And this was just one of the many episodes available on Facebook Watch. Jada has brought on guests like Jordyn Woods, Alicia Keys, and Chelsea Handler to talk about a variety of topics on Red Table Talk that encourages great dialogue. Make sure you check out an episode soon!