Major spoilers for the Dear White People series finale lie ahead.
The fourth and final season of Dear White People has finally arrived and, as a result, many viewers have now learned the ultimate fates of each of the characters they’ve come to know and love over the past four seasons. One of the most dramatic arcs of the entire series belongs to Reggie Green, played skillfully by Marque Richardson. By the series finale, Winchester University’s resident computer whiz was left in a very interesting situation, and Richardson has some keen thoughts on that massive moment and the aftermath.
Throughout Dear White People Season 4, Reggie sought to design an app that would help Black people find safe spaces. The tech was ultimately put to the test in the series finale, when he discovered that a racist shooter was present on campus. Ultimately, using his newly registered gun, he killed the shooter before harm could be done, though Reggie later disappeared, skipping his graduation in the process.
This entire season featured flash-forwards to the future, in which the characters ominously alluded to Reggie’s fate. But fortunately, it turned out their friend was indeed alive but had been in hiding due to harassment following the incident. But in the show’s closing moments, he finally reunited with his friends and his wife, Joelle. I recently spoke to Marque Richardson, who shared his feelings on the conclusion of his character’s journey:
I was just glad that he found his peace by the end of it, you know. He definitely found his peace, he found his purpose, he found his soul, he found his soulmate, he found his family, he found his love. He found his joy. And so much of his experience prior to the end of the series, after episode 5, season 1, was just traumatic. It was so much trauma, it was so much exploration and PTSD and all that comes… the infinite layers of that and depression, all of these different things, just swimming in that darkness.
Anyone who’s followed Dear White People for the past four seasons knows that Reggie’s journey has been an emotional rollercoaster. In the first season, he had a traumatic experience with a cop, and the shock from the incident left him with PTSD that carried through the remainder of the series. And in the third season, he unintentionally became linked to a sexual harassment case involving a professor and a classmate. Needless to say, Reggie earned his peace.
Nevertheless, Marque Richardson is still grateful for all of the character’s experiences. As the actor explained, you can’t have the positive aspects of life without the negative:
But I’m so appreciative of that darkness. Just as with life, there’s a whole, a yin and a yang, the shadow and the light. It’s all needed, it’s all a part of the experience. So I was just grateful that Justin [Simien] and the writing staff stayed true and gave us material to chew into and push the words further from the paper.
When Dear White People (a continuation of the 2014 film) began in 2017, fans probably wouldn’t have imagined what was in store for Reggie, or any of the characters for that matter. But showrunners Justin Simien and Jaclyn Moore handled him with care, allowing him to emerge from his experiences as a stronger person.
Dear White People Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.
