# Queen Sugar (2016)

> Two estranged sisters and one of their sons inherit a Louisiana sugarcane farm and must decide whether to rebuild their family and its land.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/59500

## Facts

- Seasons: 7
- Episodes: 88
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama
- Created by: Ava DuVernay
- Network: OWN
- Cast: Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Kofi Siriboe, Nicholas L. Ashe, Dondré Whitfield, Omar J. Dorsey, Greg Vaughan, Tina Lifford
- TMDB rating: 7.8/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4419214/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: warm, wistful, grounded, hopeful, intimate

## What critics say

Audiences widely praise Queen Sugar as a warm, socially attentive family drama whose strongest seasons are its middle run, with the seventh season rated noticeably lower.

## Synopsis

Queen Sugar (2016-2022) is an American family drama series created by Ava DuVernay for OWN. Nova Bordelon (Rutina Wesley), a journalist in New Orleans, returns with her teenage son Micah (Nicholas L. Ashe) to rural Louisiana after her father's death, and the sisters Charley Bordelon West (Dawn-Lyen Gardner) and Ralph Angel Bordelon (Kofi Siriboe) must decide what to do with an 800-acre sugarcane farm. The engine of the series is the tension between the family's need to keep the land working and the pull of each character's own ambitions and old wounds. Episodes are built from the daily grind of harvest seasons, business deals, local politics, and family confrontations. Set in present-day Louisiana cane country, the show draws on rich Southern heritage and Black community life. Its tone is warm yet rigorous, grounded and emotionally direct, with moments of wistful melancholy and hope. Adapted from the novel by Natalie Baszile, it is a serialized, character-driven drama across seven seasons. Fans of This Is Us, Big Love and Dallas will find resonance in its layered family dynamics and its devotion to inheritance and belonging.

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