Harry Slate has a hole in his life where his family used to be. His wife died more than twenty years ago, and his teenager left their Alabama home soon after and never called. So when an email promises that his child is coming back, he is elated. He is also expecting the wrong person.
That is where Clean Slate begins. The Prime Video sitcom premiered on February 6, 2025, with George Wallace as Harry, a car wash owner who is proud of his work and drives a vintage convertible with his logo on it. Laverne Cox plays the “fancy lady” who turns up on his porch with a suitcase.
Cox headlines the show and also created it, alongside Dan Ewen and Wallace. Norman Lear, whose credits include All in the Family, Maude and Good Times, was an executive producer before his death in December 2024. Mashable’s Kristy Puchko compared the setup to Archie Bunker and his son-in-law, “but if at least one of them had gone to therapy.”
Home again
Desiree left 23 years earlier for New York, where she became an aspiring gallerista. The funding for her gallery collapsed, so she returns with city expectations, queer culture and the language of therapy. Harry has kept the house exactly as it was. Over 10 episodes, Puchko writes, the two come to understand and accept each other.
The culture clash runs several ways. Desiree rolls her eyes at her father’s taste, including a “Last Supper of Soul” painting that features Ray Charles but not Beyoncé. Harry meets her friends, among them her closeted local best friend Louis, played by D.K. Uzoukwu. And going home lets Desiree see the Southern charms she left behind, like a county fair, without having to hide.
The supporting cast includes Telma Hopkins as the churchgoing Miss Ella and Phillip Garcia as the neighbor Miguel. Jay Wilkison and Norah Murphy play Mack, a formerly incarcerated single dad who works at the car wash, and his daughter Opal, who wants to be “the next Jeff Bezos.”
Puchko says the show offers trans representation without painting a queer utopia. Most people welcome Desiree back, but in the fourth episode a pastor shakes her hand as he would a man’s. Desiree does not want the grand gestures her loved ones plan in response, and Puchko calls the way they listen “a beautiful climax to the episode.”
