'Blackish' Halloween Recap: Michael Strahan Guest Stars In "Jacked O'Lantern" Episode

Promos for the Black-ish Halloween episode, "Jacked O'Lantern" may have given away the Johnson family's costumes, but the episode delivered with Michael Strahan in a guest-starring role and the Halloween hijinks that followed.

Anthony Anderson's character, Dre, opened the episode with taking a look at his long-time history of dressing up for Halloween. He talked about how he would steal money from his mother's purse, just to get on the bus and trick or treat at houses with better candy. Now that he's successful, he's realized that he lives in the neighborhood where all children (his cousins included) will be knocking on his door for the good candy.

Viewers were introduced to the Johnson's cousins who, each year, beat up Dre's kids with his permission. As much as Dre believes his kids will toughen up from their annual beating, Dre is just as afraid as his children when when facing his cousin Junebug (Strahan).

Dre and Bow dressed impeccably as Barack and Michelle Obama and give great one-liners throughout the show. The girls dressed up as Sasha and Malia and little Jack was the family dog Bo. The Johnsons were all about Halloween, as expected, but Grandma Ruby was the one family member that couldn't stand it.

 @anthonyanderson (#POTUS) and I (#FLOTUS) are reminding you to tune in to tonight’s @blackishABC at 9:30/8:30c! It’s your civic duty #blackish #

A photo posted by Tracee Ellis Ross (@traceeellisross) on Oct 28, 2015 at 2:31pm PDT

While Bow gave out candy, Ruby was seen handing out bibles. Junior finally made his appearance in the episode dressed up as POTUS' secret service and of course took the character too seriously. He followed Dre around all week and even monitored his bathroom breaks.

As the inevitable showdown between the Johnsons and their cousins was underway, the Johnsons felt armed and ready after preparing for the brawl all year. Dre was surprised to see his cousin show up with caramel apples, which were a sweet addition to the psychological warfare Junebug planned for Dre. Within the first few minutes of catching up, Junebug insulted Dre and embarrassed him in front of his children.

The kids learned a lesson about bullying from Dre's situation. After winning the first round of the cousin beatdown, the kids confronted their cousins with truth bombs and insults to break their spirits when they were holed up in Junior's room. After getting their feelings hurt, the cousins decided to not go trick or treating with the Johnsons. In a turn of events, Jack's candy ended up stolen and the cousins jumped into action to help their family.

Throughout the episode Bow realized that she was a lot more like her racist neighbor Janine when it came to sketchy kids visiting their neighborhood than she had though. She was skeptic when a melancholy teenager arrived at her doorstep, but more generous to the younger kids, who ended up vandalizing their home and hitting on her.

At the episode's closing, viewers found out that Dre's unconventional parenting ways to toughen his kids comes from his own mother. She used to let Junebug beat up Dre, because the family knew that he had a bright future ahead of him. Dre made up with Junebug and the kids make up with their cousins as they beat up trick or treaters that took Jack's candy. It was an eventful holiday that seemingly brought the Johnson's family even closer.