Tracy Morgan likens Season 2 of “The Last OG” to the epic “Godfather” movie saga — with a dash of “Star Wars” and the miniseries “Roots” added to the TBS series’ comic premise.
“On the ‘Godfather’ [movies] you were on the inside, seeing Clemenza wiping tomato sauce out of the pan,” he says. “ ‘The Godfather’ is a movie about a family who happens to be in the mob. ‘Roots’ wasn’t just about slavery. ‘Roots’ was about family. You got to know Kizzy and Kunta Kinte and got to know their struggles.
“And that’s basically what ‘The Last OG’ is,” he says. “But it’s also based on ‘Star Wars’ — where Obi Wan Kenobi was a dope OG.”
Season 2 of “The Last OG” (“OG” means “original gangster”) doesn’t miss a beat from Season 1, in which ex-con and wannabe chef Tray (Morgan) returned to his gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood after 15 years behind bars. He learns that his girlfriend, Shay (Tiffany Haddish), is married (to Josh, played by Ryan Gaul) and that she’s the mother of Tray’s high-school-age twins, Amira (Taylor Christian Mosby) and Shazad (Dante Hoagland), who were born while he was in prison.
Season 2 will take viewers on a journey back to the main characters’ earlier lives. In the season opener, we learned more about Shay’s history, including her troubled relationship with her mother and how she reacted to Tray’s imprisonment (including a scene in which she takes a bus to visit him while she’s pregnant, but doesn’t go through with it).
“All of these characters in ‘The Last OG’ have families so we need to visit those places,” Morgan says. “Everyone can relate to that. It’s a human story. We all have issues, but one thing I love about this show, and we say it all the time: ‘Second chances are a beautiful thing.’ ”
Episode 2, airing Tuesday (10:30 p.m.), recounts Tray’s prison-chef history and establishes one of the season’s main story arcs as he starts his own food business with help from Mullins (Cedric the Entertainer). “Food plays a role in all our lives, especially to guys in prison,” Morgan says. “[A prison cook] is a very coveted position, so if you can cook and make their time a little easier — I’m not saying they’re good people — but in prison you gotta find a position and a passion, and for Tray his passion is cooking. Imagine that?
“It’s a big part of his life; I ain’t saying he’s the healthiest, but in jail there isn’t any healthy food, so you gotta use your imagination,” he says. “But when he’s on the outside he has access to vegetables and all of that healthy stuff so he goes nuts.”
Morgan says he’s proud of “The Last OG” in its mixture of comedy and heartfelt sentiment.
“It’s a dark premise but it’s color in a dark place,” he says. “The thing I love most of this show is [Shay] didn’t have to let Tray back in his kids’ lives but she was kind enough to do that and Tray thanks Josh because Josh was there and he stepped in and Tray’s kids turned out to be brave kids.
“You’re also going to meet Tray’s mom this season,” he says. “Tray had a life outside of hustling, that’s what got him in trouble, but he had a life. You’ll get to know this world now that you’re on the inside.”
