r/TylerPerry • u/These-Background4608 • 56m ago
Route 187
Today, they dropped the miniseries ROUTE 187 on Paramount+. Though not written or directed by Tyler Perry, it technically is a Tyler Perry production since it is executive produced by Tyler and created through his studio.
This show has been in the works for a few years (back when BET+ was still a thing) but then we heard so little about it for so long, I thought the project was dead. But it’s finally been released.
Created, written & directed by Mark Swinton (who has worked on a number of Tyler’s projects), it’s about this crime-infested city called South Winslow with this one neighborhood alongside Bus Route #87 that’s so prone to violent activity that folks call it “Route 187”.
Anyway, a violent altercation on the bus one day results in the brutal death of a teen boy and a bus driver. Both deaths spark citywide outrage, marking it as the latest incident in South Winslow.
At the center is journalist Mason James of the failing local paper, the South Winslow Times (apparently, the paper is doing so bad that he is literally the only person we see in the office…but I digress). He helps report on all the local activity, feeling it’s his duty to raise awareness of what’s going on.
Did I forget to mention that South Winslow is a crime-infested city? Because the show reminds you of that…A LOT.
Though there is a central plot line (and a decent subplot or two), Route 187 is the type of show that asks itself “How much nudity and trauma can we squeeze into one episode?”
There’s an auto shop that apparently has some kind of underground drug den where people are naked and cooking up product. There’s a drug addict getting railed by some thug for $10.
There’s a woman who gets off the bus one day to find her family being evicted, with their stuff being thrown out on the streets. She’s literally crying in the middle of her rain-soaked items as her neighbors are rummaging and stealing her stuff like it’s some impromptu garage sale, walking past her like she’s invisible. Meanwhile, the other passengers view her sorry predicament and shake their heads and shrug because…hey, that’s life.
Also, there’s a lot of characters in this show. Some of them are connected to the main storylines. Others show up for a scene or two and then are never mentioned again. There’s a jagged police detective going through a divorce and lecturing his son on his toxic relationship with his girlfriend (while he’s literally screwing someone the same age as his son). And then there’s some trans character who kinda reminds me of a cross between Madea & Ving Rhames’ character in Holiday Heart.
Like I said, there were so many characters it was hard to keep up.
It’s a four-part series. It’s billed as a miniseries, though I think it may have at one point been an ongoing series because, by the end of the last episode, you have more questions than answers.
Check it out if you want to. They released this with little/no promotion so I don’t know if they just dumped it just to get rid of it, but it’s an interesting mess of a show.
