Family OVER Everything

Tia wasn’t expecting to cry. But while shooting a scene for her new sitcom, Family Reunion, the tears flowed when co-star Loretta Devine started singing gospels. “I’ve lived this,” the mom of two says about the moment when one of her on-screen daughters is baptized on the Netflix show, which debuted on July 10. “I grew up in the church. My grandmother was an evangelist.”

That’s just one of the many parallels between Tia and her character, Cocoa McKellan, who’s also a working mom. But first, some key differences: Tia, an actress and lifestyle expert, shares Cree, 8, and Cairo, 1, with actor-husband Cory Hardrict. Cocoa, on the other hand, is a mom of four and an Etsy-shop-owning jewelry designer married to a retired football player named Moz, short for Moses.

The fictional sextet call Seattle home (the Hardricts are Los Angeles-based) until they relocate to a tiny town in close. Cocoa and clan move in with traditional, churchgoing M’Dear (played by Devine) and hubby Jebediah (played by Richard Roundtree, aka the original Shaft). But Cocoa’s more-modern parenting style doesn’t jibe with M’Dear’s spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child philosophy. Conflict and hilarity ensue, with a vibe reminiscent of ABC’s 1990s TGIF lineup, which propelled child actresses Tia and her twin sister, Tamera Mowry-Housley, to celebrity.