Black Cake Season 1 Episodes 1-3 Review: Covey/Coventina/Eleanor

Often, the journey to self-discovery leaves visible and invisible scars. However, Covetina’s coming-of-age story may be one of the darkest. Heartbreak, betrayals, and bad men pave the way for her identity in Black Cake.

Hulu released Black Cake Season 1-3 “Covey/Coventina/Eleanor,” all at once. This decision helps plant the foundation for Covey’s voyage.

The premiere episodes hook you and make the wait for another episode seem like an eternity. Black Cake‘s atmosphere, tone, and style make it essential viewing.

The brilliance of this Hulu Original lies in its ability to feel like a television event. Streaming services have (kind of) erased the urgency of watching television at a given time and place, especially family sagas and limited or miniseries. The days of spending five straight days glued to your TV screen watching one part a day of a limited series are gone, at least in the network television way.

In those days, if you missed one episode, you would have to wait for repeat airings or the release of its VHS or DVD. The luxury of streaming it the next day didn’t exist.

This format of television events especially worked for family sagas and adaptations.

Black Cake emulates the same level of heightened emotions, importance, and intensity that came with that era of television. It’s not often in the days of streaming services that a show makes you feel like you need to gather everyone around the television. 

This series’ richness in storytelling needs savoring not devouring.

Smartly, Hulu plans to release most of Black Cake weekly. This is the right decision not only from a potential word-of-mouth growth perspective but also to spark engaging conversations around it. 

You need space to take in this generational drama and grow alongside the characters.

Fans of Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson should enjoy this adaptation. In the first three episodes, some changes happen from the source material, but most of the important aspects remain.

Additionally, the minor changes help improve some of the book elements. For example, the series adds more layers to Gibbs and Lin. Lin becomes a much more sympathetic character in the show, but not so much so that his actions are forgivable. Gibbs and Covey’s relationship also feels more developed.

You see the beginning of an epic love story with all the growing pains that come with it.

Black Cake’s biggest obstacle in the first three episodes is it often feels melodramatic. It has a soapy quality at times. However, it’s hard to name a drama that doesn’t walk the line of melodrama at times.

Additionally, there is nothing wrong with soapy or melodrama, especially when balanced to not feel over-the-top. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of melodrama?

When this Hulu series starts to feel too exaggerated, it pulls it back with more natural and authentic feeling scenes, such as Covey and Gibbs falling in love or Lin showing his regrets for his decisions.

Byron and Benny are also underused in the first three episodes. The series begins the foundation to showcase their struggles but they still don’t feel as developed and essential as Covey. In the book, Covey’s story is the most interesting and vital portion but Benny and Byron’s pain helps bring the story into the modern day.

It helps show why Covey’s story remains relevant even many decades later. 

Hopefully, the next episodes start to develop them more before transitioning out of Covey’s story and into theirs.

The first three episodes of Black Cake lay a solid foundation for what could be essential fall television.

What did you think of these episodes of Black Cake? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Black Cake streams on Wednesdays on Hulu. 

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