It's not reality TV. It's HBO. Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show now on Showmax

If you don't know this about me, now you know. I live for gheigh tv. When Showmax comfirmed Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show as one of the shows streaming this April, I was excited to tap into this darkly funny documentary series about the Emmy-winning comedian’s tumultuous quest for love, sex, and truth. The HBO Original had its world premiere at SXSW in March 2024 and is now coming express from the US to Showmax on Wednesdays. 

The first episode kicks off in the build up to the 2022 Emmy Awards, where Jerrod was nominated for his guest appearance hosting Saturday Night Live for the first time, as well as for Writing for Rothaniel, his Bo Burnham-directed comedy special where he came out as gay publicly. 

Since winning the Emmy for Rothaniel, Jerrod has gone on to host the Golden Globes, won a Writers Guild of America Award, and been nominated for the Black Reel Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Performance for Poor Things, which went on to win four Oscars. 

At the start of his reality show, Jerrod is trying to “self Truman Show myself” while aiming “to remain being truthful on camera” - which, as he jokes in the trailer, “is cool until you have a reason to lie.”

As his experiment in radical honesty begins, he’s scrambling to find a date to the Emmys, even auditioning options on Grindr, while grappling with two key relationships in his life: his disapproving mother and his crush, Grammy winner Tyler, The Creator. 

He decides to confront Tyler, The Creator, on camera, about why their friendship hasn’t been the same since Jerrod admitted he’d developed feelings for him. 

Watch: 

At the same time, he’s trying to avoid his mother, a conservative Christian struggling with her son’s sexuality. Trigger warning: the trailer cuts straight from her trying to pray the gay away with her son to her telling him she loves him… 

Trailer: 

The Real Housewives this is not; comparisons are being made instead to other genre-bending, meta reality shows like Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal. To update that old tagline: “It’s not reality TV. It’s HBO.”

The unusual reality show currently has a rare 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Time says, “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show makes reality TV - hilariously, painfully - real again,” while The Hollywood Reporter says, “I laughed and covered my eyes in mortification in equal measure — and since I finished my screeners, I haven’t stopped thinking about it.” 

Stream on Showmax: HERE

Details of future episodes are still under wraps, although we know Jerrod confronts his problem with fidelity in episode 2, tries to make up for being a bad friend in episode 3, and attempts to reconcile with his father during a four-day road trip in episode 4.