Rachel Calloway, Family Time

Rachel Calloway (Tanjareen Thomas)

In family comedy Family Time, Rachel was main character Lisa Calloway-Stallworth’s younger sister. Rachel identified multiple times as a lesbian in the series and she said multiple times that she was interested in women, but it was always treated as a joke. Her sexuality being only a source of comedy was made even clearer when she married a man that she couldn’t tolerate after a drunken weekend in Las Vegas, and had sex with him.

Rachel also appeared as straight and very interested in men in various dream sequences throughout the show. During the show’s four seasons she was only seen with a woman once, again played as comedy, and barely touched her so-called girlfriend, who surprisingly left her off screen before the end of the episode.

Season 1

• 1×01: Rachel came to visit her sister, and when Lisa’s husband’s mother remembered her with “ah you were the lesbian”, she replied with “I am still a lesbian”
• 1×05: Rachel talked to Lisa’s husband and mentioned how Lisa stole her date. When he asked if it was a woman, Rachel responded that she hadn’t always been strictly into women. She told a story about Lisa stealing a man named Kevin from her, and how she had dated Kevin’s roommate, a woman named Chris.
• 1×06: Fight between Lisa and her sisters

Season 2

• 2×01-2×02, minor/background appearances.
• 2×06 Lisa’s older sister Lori was dating Lisa’s ex, which caused drama, and at the end, Rachel suggested that she and Lori should switch sides. Lori said women were worse than men, to which Rachel agreed, even if they were softer. At the end of episode it was revealed that Lisa and Rachel dated the same man, Shawn.
• 2×08: There was a dream sequence in which Lisa’s husband’s friend, Donnie, turned Rachel straight
• 2×09: Rachel’s sister Lori wanted to have a baby by herself and Rachel and Lisa gave their opinions about it
• 2×10: Rachel brought home Ellen, a woman she had dated a couple weeks, to meet her sister Lisa. Ellen accidentally made Lisa mad by criticizing her painting and at the end of the episode Rachel said Ellen dumped her.

Season 3

• 3×08: Minor/background appearance
• 3×10: The Calloway-Stallworth family was in Vegas to renew Lisa and her husband’s marriage wows. They all got heavily drunk and Rachel married Donnie. At first Donnie don’t want to annul the marriage, but eventually he changed his mind. At the end of the episode Rachel also revealed she and Donnie had consummated their marriage.

Season 4

• 4×01: Rachel and Lisa were talking to their recently divorced neighbor, who was looking for a new husband and Rachel mentioned looking for a woman a couple of times.
• 4×05, 4×07, 4×08, 4×12: Minor/background appearance
• 4×06: Rachel told Lisa that men couldn’t be changed which was why she “changed” – and also because she liked breasts.
• 4×10: Rachel showed her sisters naked pictures of herself that she had sent to women she dated. They (along with pics of her sister Lori) ended up being emailed to Lisa’s husband Tony and he dreamed that both Rachel and Lori tried to hit on him.
• 4×11: Rachel, Lisa and Lori were planning a cruise tripe and Rachel mentioned she wanted to bring her new “friend”, Tammy, with her.

Appearances:

• 19 episodes.

Female love interests:

• Chris (off-screen, unknown)
• Tammy (off-screen, unknown)
• Ellen (Chastity Dotson, lesbian, guest, 1 episode)

Relationship story arc with a woman: No

Male love interests:

• Kevin (off-screen)
• Shawn (off-screen)
• Donnie (Clayton Thomas, recurring, ex-husband)
• Anthony "Tony" Stallworth (Omar Gooding)

Relationship story arc with a man: No

Male love interest after being identified as a lesbian? Yes

Filter Relationship Arc:

• None

Storyline during sweeps? No

[1] A relationship story arc is defined as explicit, developed on screen, and lasting more than 3 episodes. It is listed as questionable or subtext if romance is only implied, mentioned instead of shown on screen, part of a dream sequence, or otherwise not explicit for the viewer.
[2] Sweeps episodes air in February, May, July and November, the periods when advertising rates are set. A character is marked as "sweeps" when there is a very limited number of episodes that address their sexuality, all air during sweeps period, and the storyline is otherwise ignore/dropped.