Delroy Lindo wants you to know that no family is perfect. 

During the length of his 48-year career, Lindo has starred in several critically acclaimed projects — “Malcolm X,” “Da 5 Bloods,” “Good Fight” — but it wasn’t until he landed the role of formerly incarcerated father Edwin Alexander on Hulu’s “UnPrisoned” that he found the space for generational healing. In the series, Edwin is working to mend his relationship with his adult daughter, Paige, after he was imprisoned for 17 years. The father-daughter duo shows how generational trauma can be complicated, and one can find humor and acceptance in that complication. 

It's a relatable journey for many, including Lindo, who tells BET.com that he had a complex relationship with his own father. The 71-year-old actor says that the show’s depiction of a less-than-perfect child-parent dynamic is one of the most valuable aspects of the series. 

“That's the goal, that it isn't perfect,” Lindo explains. “We’re struggling mightily to try to find how to be with each other in the face of a really complicated history. The fact that you as an audience member can say, ‘Yeah, I relate to it. It resonates for me because I have my own complicated relationship with my father.’ That means everything. That means everything because that's why we're doing it. We're doing it for the hundreds of 1000s of people who have complicated relationships with their parents; daughters and their fathers.”

“My father didn't raise me,” he adds. “So we all come to this with our own personal histories, and the fact that it resonates with audiences in the way that it resonates for the reasons that it resonates is everything.” 

In season two, Lindo’s Edwin and Kerry Washington’s Paige attend family therapy with her son, Finn (Faly Rakotohavana), who has no relationship with his father. The generational dynamics are evident as the characters work through their issues with their eccentric therapist, Murphy, played by John Stamos. Lindo tells BET that “UnPrisoned” wants to highlight the importance of therapy in the Black community, and portraying it through comedy is one of its biggest assets. 

“In our community, I still think there’s a stigma,” Lindo shares. “First of all, admitting to oneself that one needs therapy, and then going about the business of finding the appropriate therapist. So recognizing that, as a topic inside our community, it's still an issue. It was very important that we show that this is one of the steps this family is taking. As untidy as it is — and thank God some of it is really funny — that we are taking that step because we all recognize that we have a problem.” 

“We got to try to address this somehow,” he continues. “And so, I think it's important for us to include that as one of the avenues that we're investigating, specifically as it relates to our people.”

In one episode in particular, the therapy session turns into a fantasy sequence in which the Edwin family literally wrestles it out in a WWE-style ring as they talk through their issues. Through its two seasons, “UnPrisoned” has purposely included fantasy scenes to diffuse the heaviness of the subject matter and inject humor, according to Lindo, who also serves as an executive producer on the show. 

“It's hilarious,” he says about the episode. “It's a very creative way of presenting what some of the components are at the heart of that pathology. It's a funny, entertaining way of digging into that. In the similar way that, in season one, we had that Saturday Night Fever [scene]. The disco satire. Maybe that will become a component of [the series], if there's a season three, that we’ll satirize certain aspects of our pathology as a way of trying to figure out how to address our pathology.” 

Lindo adds that he “hasn’t done a lot of comedy” in his career but hopes audiences will walk away from “UnPrisoned” feeling seen, entertained, and informed. 

“I felt that it would be important to present some of this content comedically so that people didn't feel like they were being preached to or that it was too heavy, because inherently, it's a very heavy subject,” he concludes. “My job was just to play the reality of the situation. And hopefully, the comedic aspects take care of themselves playing that reality.”

“UnPrisoned” season two is available to stream now on Hulu.