Fishburne, Ross And Anderson
Cast member and executive producer Anthony Anderson (R) gestures next to co-stars Laurence Fishburne (L) and Tracee Ellis Ross at a panel for the ABC television series "Black-ish" during the Television Critics Association Cable Summer Press Tour in Beverly Hills, California July 15, 2014. Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

ABC has just announced orders for a full season extension of their new comedy series "Black-ish" after a successful run for the first couple of weeks. Now on its fourth episode, the Johnson family continues to serve up the laughs while dealing with real modern day family issues in an increasingly racially equal society.

This week's episode entitled "Crime and Punishment" deals with the child-rearing issue on the policy on whether or not spanking is an acceptable form of punishment for erring children. Family Patriarch Andre Johnson who calls spanking "whooping" is faced with the decision when his wife puts him on the spot.

Rainbow Johnson, Andre's wife, passes judgment o their son Jack who has taken the habit of hiding from his parents. After a particularly stressful situation at the mall where Rainbow frantically thought that her child has been kidnapped and only to find out that he had just been hiding, she tells six year old Jack that he will get spanked for his insolence.

Upon returning home, Rainbow tells Andre that he needs to spank Jack due to the incident. Andre refuses and recalls how difficult it was for him that one time he spanked their older child Andre Jr. Rainbow is adamant that the punishment needs to be given in order to maintain credibility as parents.

Andre seeks the opinions of his colleagues at work who all agreed that they turned out better after having been spanked as kids. He then resolves to go through with Jack's ass whooping but his colleagues protest his decision. Andre is confused by their reaction since they had only just told him about the advantages. They all then contradicted themselves and said that while they felt they did benefit from the spanking, they would never spank their own children.

Andre loses confidence and decides not to go through with it until Jack pulls yet another prank and this time on him and not on Rainbow. He is angered by his child's brazen disregard for what they said and then resolves to give him the whooping he deserves. Pops, who used to give Andre his whooping when he was a kid, is all for the old school method of punishment.

The kids try to wheedle out of the situation knowing that Jack's case can be a precedent to them being possible recipients of their own spankings in the future. Despite their best efforts, Andre manages to get Jack in the room for his moment of reckoning. With belt in hand, Andre is unable to do it and just ends up sternly speaking to his son. He tells Jack that he's a big disappointment and this unexpectedly sends Jack into a breakdown. Andre is pleased about having gotten out of giving his son a good spanking and he realised that what he thinks of them matters to his kids. Meanwhile, after seeing their brother crying, the kids remain terrified that he had in fact been spanked and that they could be next.