Bel-Air Is Set Up To Avoid One Of Fresh Prince’s Weirdest Storylines

WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead for Bel-Air episode 7!

Bel-Air has already repeated a few storylines from Fresh Prince so far, but the reboot’s new characterizations set it up to avoid one of the weirdest plots from season 5. As a sitcom, Fresh Prince‘s episodes inevitably featured some bizarre stories, most of which would be too humorous to include in Bel-Air’s dramatic reimagining. Nonetheless, there are a few major character developments from Fresh Prince that could have reasonably been introduced in Bel-Air, though the new character personalities are thankfully avoiding one particularly controversial storyline with Will and Lisa.

While Bel-Air’s dramatization has given much more nuance and complexities to Fresh Prince’s characters, some of them hardly reflect their original counterparts, especially those introduced much later in the original sitcom. Additionally, Bel-Air’s desire to confront important conversations about the characters’ experiences has led to new details about the lives of Fresh Prince’s figures, including Fred Wilkes. As Bel-Air season 1 digs deeper into the romance between Will Smith and Lisa Wilkes, which didn’t occur until the characters were in college during Fresh Prince season 5, the reboot is avoiding the weird storyline that originally broke up the couple for good.

In Fresh Prince, Lisa was the character that Will fell so head-over-heels for that he put his playboy days behind him. Their romance led to the two characters becoming engaged, but they never actually tied the knot. The night before their wedding, Will overcomes his reservations, but Lisa reveals she’s having doubts, so they decide not to marry. Meanwhile, Lisa and Will had sent her father Fred and his mother Vy to dinner in an effort to get to know each other, only for the two to decide not to let the wedding ceremony go to waste and get married themselves. Their marriage made Lisa and Will step-siblings, which effectively ended any notion of the two original Fresh Prince characters getting back together.

Bel-Air’s version of Fred Wilkes is very different from John Amos’ Fresh Prince character, as he’s now a powerful chief of police who is not only married to another woman, but also has a baby on the way. On the other hand, Will’s mom Vy has hardly been featured in Bel-Air, giving no indication as to what her love life looks like, nor if she would ever be in a place to fall in love with Fred. Keeping the idea of Vy and Fred getting married out of mind, Bel-Air season 1 has also made Lisa’s father a significant antagonist, as he’s now purposefully running against legal powerhouse Uncle Phil for District Attorney and is trying to discover the truth of why Will came to California. Since Fred’s marital status seems to be permanent and Vy has yet to even visit Bel-Air, it doesn’t seem a romance between the two will cause Will and Lisa to split.

Instead of Fred and Vy getting married being the cause of Will and Lisa’s break up, the only significant obstacles standing between them are Carlton, who previously dated Lisa, and the antagonism between Fred and Uncle Phil. It’s possible that Bel-Air will actually end with Will and Lisa as an endgame couple, given the reboot doesn’t make them step-siblings again. However, it seems that this time around their breakup could be based on him lying to her about why he’s in California, their families’ growing conflict or Bel-Air‘s Carlton being jealous of their relationship.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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