Welcome to ! In this series, IndieWire speaks to creators and showrunners behind a few of our favorite television programs about the moment they realized their show was breaking big.
“Diarra from Detroit” starts simply enough. Months into a separation from her husband, Diarra Brickland (Diarra Kilpatrick) pushes herself into a blind date. It goes well — very well — but then she doesn’t hear from him. It’s like… poof. He’s gone. What happened? Is he busy? Sick? In trouble? Diarra’s friends mock her for ignoring the most obvious answer — she’s been ghosted — but the inquisitive school teacher can’t shake the feeling that something else is going on.
She’s right, and “Diarra from Detroit,” available on BET+, gradually develops into a winding mystery, then a shocking thriller, then a tender romance. Soon, it’s living within all these genre at once, plus a hearty helping of comedy thrown in to keep everyone honest. Lush colors splash across pop-up nightclubs and seedy card games. Diarra’s voice narrates what’s going on in her active, sleep-deprived imagination. One clue leads to the next, forming a puzzle the size of the Motor City by the time .
That the eight-episode first season comes together at all is a testament to the entire team’s diligent work. That each story engine fires on all cylinders — ceaselessly entertaining, tonally balanced, and a helluva good time — is a credit to the vision of its star, creator, producer, and writer, Diarra Kilpatrick.
“It was very much ‘Sex in the City’ meets ‘Chinatown,’ but drop the whole thing in chocolate,” Kilpatrick said of her original elevator pitch for the show, which she had about her 2017 digital series, “American Koko.”
“After I made that show, people kept asking me, ‘What was the more grounded version?’ And I remember being like, ‘I don’t know,'” Kilpatrick said. “Years later, I came back to it. It was kind of like, ‘Oh, that’s what people were asking me to do! I think they meant this.'”
Reactions indicate she’s right. Reviews are glowing, including raves from and that call the series a “showcase” for Kilpatrick (who was most recently seen opposite Chris Chalk in ). A premiere at Tribeca helped generate extra buzz (and prestige) for the series’ March debut on BET+, and fans have only been growing as “Diarra from Detroit” makes its way through awards season.
Below, Kilpatrick explains how her series made its way to streaming, when she realized she had a hit on her hands, and who is getting the biggest reactions so far. (OK, we’ll give you that one right now: It’s Phylicia Rashad.)
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
After “American Koko,” what drove you to create “Diarra from Detroit”? What guided the idea forward?
I knew I wanted to do something that revolved around a P.I., and I wanted it to be more grounded. But I wanted it to be accessible to a wide audience. I feel like that’s one of my missions: that culturally specific work can be accessible to large audiences and diverse audiences. I wanted an accessible way in, so I wasn’t sure that I wanted to just have her start out as the P.I. This first season is really like an origin story.
And then I got little bits here and there. I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of ghosting. It’s my generation’s thing for sure, but because I’ve been with my husband since college, I missed the whole thing. When my friends tell me these stories, I’m like, “You mean he just up and disappeared?” I sound like someone’s aunt all the time. But this is a phenomenon that so many people are going through, and I wanted to touch on that. It seemed fun.
¿Qué tipo de reacciones tuviste para lanzar el espectáculo? ¿Cómo fue ese proceso?
Para ser honesto, fue un proceso bastante indoloro. Estaba muy bien temporal.[Executive producer]Kenia[Barris]Llamé y dijo: "Voy a apostar a los estudios. Estoy trayendo escritores. ¿Quieres venir? ¿Tienes ideas? Y había escrito este lanzamiento en 2020 mientras estaba embarazada en una pandemia con no mucho que hacer, así que entré en la reunión diciendo: "Claro, me encantaría venir aquí. Aquí está la idea que más me entusiasma ".
There were some notes. They wanted to see if Diarra coming from further away was more impactful — like, if her marriage had fallen apart in New York and she was coming [Volver a Detroit] — which felt a little less nuanced to me, but I tried it. There were a few little tiny things, but when I turned the pitch into the studio, they came back and said, “Oh, we’ve shared this with the people across the hall at the streamer, and they would like for you to do this at the streamer, and if you do it at the streamer, we’ll give you a script-to-series deal.”
Wanting to avoid a super-long development period felt wise, and also jumping at the opportunity to do something different at BET. I felt like there was a tremendous opportunity to utilize the name recognition of the brand, but to make work with a fair amount of artistic integrity — that was made with a broad audience in mind, but wasn’t going to skimp on cultural specificity.
So when did it first feel like you’d accomplished that? That you’d made something really special?
We didn’t have a lot of cheerleading on the show, so I really didn’t go like, “Oh, this is really good” until Tribeca.
Oh, vaya.
There was not a lot of positive feedback as we were making it, so it was very disconcerting. It made you question your own gut a little bit. Miles [Orión Feldsott] — who ran the show with me and executive produced — was cutting the pilot while we were still shooting, and he kept telling me, “It’s good, it’s good!” But it didn’t really click until we were in the audience of Tribeca. They were just with it and so responsive.
And there was a group of my friends who I had done youth theater with. Some lived in New York, some came from Detroit, but they were occupying one of the front rows, and they loved it. And these are not– they’re assholes. They would’ve been vocal if they didn’t like it. But they were so happy. They were floating. So that night felt like, “Oh, this is good, I think.”
Phylicia Rashad in ‘Diarra From Detroit’Courtesy of Vanessa Clifton / BET+
¿Has sido sorprendido por alguna de las reacciones hasta ahora?
Sí, a Phylicia Rashad. La gente está tan deshecha por el hecho de que ella inspira, por el hecho de que ha tenido relaciones sexuales antes. La gente dice: "Cuando le entregaste el guión, ¿cómo hiciste que dijera esto?" Estoy como, "¡A ella le encantó!" Ella estaba emocionada. No me di cuenta de que su rango era un secreto tan bien guardado. Y también es algo hermoso que la gente realmente piense que ella es su madre. Creo que la gente está teniendo la misma reacción que si su propia madre llevara una pistola y hablara de follar una tentación, mientras viendo a Phylicia Rashad hacerlo. Alguien me dijo que tenían que cortar la televisión, respirar profundamente, después de maldecir o algo así, y luego volver a encenderlo.
Hay un millón de razones por las cuales este programa ha encontrado una audiencia, pero ¿hay algo que acredite específicamente por el acorde?
Siempre escribo desde el punto de vista del miembro de la audiencia. Amo la televisión, me encantan las películas, y siempre estoy buscando lo que quiero ver. Francamente, realmente estaba en muchas comedias de media hora que hicieron versiones brillantes de la vida.[historias] with very specific point of views. But as a new mother, I was also in a place where I wasn’t finishing them as much as I was before because I just needed something to hook me. I needed it to have a little more of an engine, be a little bit more propulsive. So I wanted to do my version of that, but flip it on its head a little bit and give people something more to hold onto.
Y creo que hay algo especial en lo multihifenato: cuando estás protagonizando algo y lo escribiste. La gente responde porque no es una cosa de pensamiento grupal, donde hay un poco de compromiso en todas partes. Comencé a sentir que cuando entramos en partes de las cosas que estaban fuera de mis manos, pero hay algo hermoso en poder seguir un pensamiento desde el inicio hasta la imagen de marketing.
Ok, como fanático del cine y la televisión, ¿qué sería en tu Monte Rushmore de Detroit Entertainment? ¿Qué historias representan mejor a tu ciudad?
Bueno, "Diarra de Detroit", tengo que decir.
Good, good. Yes.
Yo diría: "Martin". Tienes que ir con "Martin", a pesar de que no fue filmado en Detroit. Y esto es salvaje porque no está ambientado en Detroit, sino "Cop Beverly Hills". Para mí, personifica ese personaje de Detroit: desaconsejadamente, él mismo tiene un código, tiene un sistema de honor, y seguirá su sistema de honor particular sin importar qué. No está bien vestido, lo diré sobre Axel, pero aparte de eso, se siente muy parecido a un tipo de Detroit. Así que lo pondría allí y la escena entre él y Gil Hill[Como el inspector Todd], cual_hace_tener lugar en Detroit, eso solo[qualifies it].
I think it’s “Beverly Hills Cop 4,” is that what they’re doing? I was so mad. I had a fantasy of like, “Oh, I want to write ‘Beverly Hills Cop 4′” — where it’s actually set in Detroit, and he’s been in Beverly Hills and he comes back to Detroit to solve a crime. But he’s so Beverly Hills now that he needs a young female cop to actually show him what’s up around the city. But who knows what they’re going to do. That’s probably not it.
Oye, si es exitoso, necesitarán un quinto.
So that movie — “Beverly Hills Cop 5” written by me, and starring me and Eddie Murphy — that’s up there. And I have to give love to “Detroiters.” It’s really funny, and I think it really captures a very particular part of Detroit culture, which is , which were its own thing. And I have a rivalry with since childhood that he doesn’t really subscribe to at all or care about at all. But I’m still hanging on to it because he refused to get out of my Big Bird chair at my birthday party. I believe we were like six or something. So I’ll put him on the opposite end [de Mount Rushmore].
Correcto, correcto, correcto. Sí, manténgalo separado.
Oh, “Out of Sight.” As Chioke [Nassor]que dirigió a nuestro piloto, estaba presentando, sabía que entendía[the show]Cuando hablaba de la primera cita entre Chris y Diarra, y estaba diciendo: "¡Podría estar" fuera de la vista! ", Esa era exactamente la escena en la que estaba pensando cuando escribí esa escena, así que sentí que" ". Ok, tendremos una mentalidad. Funcionará ".
Entonces sí, eso sería mío. "Beverly Hills Cop", "Detroiters", "Diarra de Detroit", "Martin" y "fuera de la vista".
“Diarra from Detroit” is available on BET+.