This isn’t Back to the Future or the Magic Tree House — it’s the nightmarish version called “time-traveling while Black.†America’s racist and violent past haunts us all, but not everyone gets dragged into it against their will. In the trailer for the upcoming Hulu series Kindred, based on the Octavia E. Butler classic of the same name, Dana (Mallori Johnson) wakes on a riverbank in antebellum Maryland, blinded by the summer rays. As a reward for saving a white boy who’s drowning in the distance, a man pulls a gun to her head. Her screams transport her back to the present day, where her boyfriend (Micah Stock) finds her panicking in the living room. That first time-travel foray wasn’t her last: Flitting between a life of brutal enslavement and her regular days, Dana must find a way to survive this new reality. The FX show was adapted by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose previous plays Gloria and Everybody were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Alongside Johnson and Stock, the cast includes Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown, and Sheria Irving. All eight episodes premiere on Hulu December 13.
Time Travel Isn’t So Fun in the Kindred Trailer
