Black Cake provides viewers with a truly epic story. An inter-generational saga about family, identity, emigration, love, sex, and murder – this new Hulu limited series (airing on Disney+ in Canada) has it all. 

Named after a dessert that evolved in Caribbean nations as a fusion of Plum Cake (brought by British colonizers) with dried fruits, rum, and spices, the series examines how identity, like this famous baked good, can be a complicated fusion of places and cultures. Based on the novel by Charmaine Wilkerson and created for TV by Marissa Jo Cerar, Black Cake begins in Orange County, California. When the elderly Eleanor Bennet (Chip Chung) is diagnosed with a brain tumour after a peculiar surfing accident, she is unwilling to die without sharing her truth. 

With the help of her lawyer, Eleanor surprises her kids by bequeathing them seven recordings that tell her true story. Eleanor’s son and daughter are shocked to learn that their mother is not an orphan, as they had been led to believe. Eleanor’s real name is Coventina, and she was raised by a shopkeeper father and an adventurous mother who left for America when her daughter was eleven. What’s more, Coventina’s mother was Black but her father was Chinese; Coventina’s children had no idea their Black-presenting mother was in fact biracial.

While Coventina’s secret identity initially shocks her children, the recordings slowly unravel the reasons for it. The historical drama flashes back to 1950s Jamaica: Covey, as she was known to loved ones, was a champion swimmer who dreamed of winning international competitions. She also has a loyal best friend named Bunny (Lashay Anderson) and a cute law school-bound boyfriend named Gibbs (Ahmed Alhaj). 

But not everything is perfect: Covey’s father, portrayed by the charismatic Simon Wan, has a gambling problem, which leads to him borrowing money from some unsavoury characters, leading him to sell Covey’s hand-in-marriage to a local crime boss in order to pay his debt. Covey is fearful of being married to a dangerous man, but when her husband mysteriously drops dead at their wedding ceremony – where black cake is being served – Covey is suspect #1. Innocent but unable to prove it, she boards a ship headed for London and begins a new life.

What unfolds is an epic adventure that requires Covey to bury her past in order to survive. But, as Black Cake illustrates, we can deny who we really are and where we come from, but we can’t actually change it. As Covey tells her children through the recordings, “Sometimes the stories we don’t tell about ourselves matter more than the stories we do tell.”

Admittedly, Black Cake occasionally resorts to cheap, misleading cliffhangers to build suspense, but it needn’t bother; its sweeping story – which spans continents and unfolds over half a century – is fully engaging. And Mia Isaac is luminous as the Young Covey, the anchor of the show. Charming and vulnerable, it’s a joy to root for her, as she adjusts to life on the run in The United Kingdom or contemplates blowing her cover by reaching out to her old flame, Gibbs. 

Ultimately, Black Cake is not just a story of survival, it’s about finding a way to resist – and even thrive – in the face of impossible odds. While it is a drama, this limited series has a “feel-good” quality to it.  While Black Cake deals with many very serious topics, from the racism of 1950s London to murder, Covey’s resiliency and resourcefulness always shine through generations, illuminating the way forward for her children even after her death.   

Grab your favourite hanky, because Black Cake inspires both happy and sad tears. I love it!