WARNING: ITS ALWAYS SPOILERS
I don’t know how to feel right now. I finished one season of Insecure and realized in the last 30 seconds we were witnessing the deterioration of a relationship. Everyone heard Issa Rae was making a television show for HBO and we expected more light-hearted awkwardness and quirky relationship humor. What we did not expect was to see Lawrence and Tasha having sex that is usually found on the Popular page on tastyblacks.
The episode started with Issa being depressed and calling L-Dog’s phone to make up. Issa is great at the whole adorable dummy look. Like, that face she makes when Molly calls her out on some shit and she looks around like she’s about to lie even when she isn’t lying. Now she has a whole episode to do it because she fucked up big time. I knew from the moment she stepped into that studio with Daniel that Lawrence was gonna find out. Wasn’t no “she might tell him”. The moment Molly called him her “achilles dick”, I knew her relationship was in trouble. I’d also like to thank whichever writer on the staff came up with that term.
Issa tried to work it away, but that just made her even sadder. She saw Molly on her donor thank you list and gave her a call, just to get the moderately chilly shoulder. Issa really tried to kikikikikikikiki through it, but she know damn well she told her she couldn’t keep a man. She dead ass could have apologized to Molly, but Issa isn’t the best at admitting when she fucked up as we have learned.
Turns out the girls are heading to Malibu for Kelli’s birthday, which means Molly and Issa have to deal with each other anyway. Issa tried to be buddy buddy, but Molly was in her feelings like shit. I mean, Issa started the season telling her that her pussy was broken and then did a freestyle about it, so it’s not like these feelings are new. While they’re out helping Kelli be a heathen, Molly like “fuck it, if I don’t keep niggas, that’s what I’ma do”. She decides to pull a nigga at the bar and make out with him on the dance floor, which is top 5 most trifling things you can do at the club. Issa try to let her know like “Molly, this not you, ma” but Molly like “I’m not gonna keep him anyway so hahah passive-aggressiveness”.
Meanwhile, this nigga Lawrence hanging with the light-skinned misogynist that’s married to Amanda Diva and discussing his current issues. Derek lets Lawrence know that he’s not the type of nigga to really stay mad and tells him he should go home and be a family man. As niggas are wont to do, Lawrence takes offense, exclaiming “FUCK THAT” and decides to join him on a trip to the strip club. During the trip to the strip club, Lawrence listens in on a discussion about how women ain’t the same because they won’t let you be hoes like their grandfathers were. Lawrence gets this look like “Damn, am I really like these niggas?” So the nigga Derek says something faux-philosophical before commenting on the fatnicity of a stripper’s pussy, leading up to Lawrence whispering something to said stripper. They go to the champagne room where Lawrence is told it’s 200 for the throat and 400 for birth canal. After hearing this, he suddenly looks like he’s having an epiphany or some shit.
Go back to the girls in Malibu, right and Molly done fucked this random. Like, you know HBO ain’t holding back on no sex scenes unless it’s Sex and the City (I watched 3 episodes of that shit and nobody fucked, so I never watched it again). So random guy leaves the next morning and Issa comments on it, causing Molly to get snappy. She’s like, really trying to embrace her hoe side to be like “See? You can’t hurt my feelings about keeping a man if I don’t want to.” Fast forward to the girls in the jacuzzi and shit starts getting real. Issa tries to sit out of the conversation as Kelli, Molly and Amanda Diva talk, but then they start shitting on Molly. Let me just transcribe this exchange because it was so petty
Kelli: So we just. . . we just all gonna sit here. . . and pretend new Molly ain’t the same bitch that we knew for forever?
Tiffany: I wasn’t gonna say anything, but, like, how is new Molly different?
Molly: Oh, I embrace who I am, okay? I do what I want and I don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks. Old boy from the club was cute, so I got with him.
Kelli: But that’s what you always do lmao
Tiffany: No no no, now she embraces it
Kelli: Ohhhhhhh
Tiffany: So new Molly sabotages her life on purpose.
Kelli: Ohh! Okay okay okay, so new Molly chooses for niggas to walk up out of her life? Got it. Cool cool cool LMAO
Tiffany: LMAO
This is where Issa steps in like “Nah, you got my girl fucked up” and proceeds to tell both of them things that real life people were saying about them all season. This is a popular black television trope. Tiffany then counterattacks with the fact that her husband already told her that Issa and Lawrence broke up. First off, you can’t trust married couples with shit. If you have a secret but don’t want your friend’s husband/wife to know, just don’t tell anybody. Me and my wife know everything about everybody the other deals with and we’re super excited to share it with one another.
So, yeah, immediately after this exchange, Issa gets a phone call from Lawrence. This nigga calls her from the strip club fucking talking about “It sucks sleeping on Chad’s couch. . . I miss you. . . maybe we can talk at home”. I’m out here like “Nah, this nigga didn’t just basically come crawling back from the strip club. Twitter women were right about you and I was wrong. You a whole simp.” Issa like “Yes, I got away with scratching that itch. I need to go home and appease my wounded nigga” and Molly eventually decides to run her back home.
Molly and Issa make up in the car like best friends do and we all get some nice laughs to quell the anxiety. You’re sitting here like “Awww, they’re gonna make up with Lawrence old soft ass. This is great.” Wrong. Wrong! *Charlie Murphy voice*
We see Lawrence walk past the couch he and Issa threw out, fist bumping his Piru neighbor who was sharing it with his Blood gang buddies. He goes in the house, puts down his keys and takes off his jacket as heads into their room. We then see Issa pull up and hop out, expecting a joyful reunion. She comes in and sees his keys on the counter, which illicits a smirk of accomplishment and proceeds to their bedroom also. She comes in to see one pillow on the damn bed and the whole closet empty outside of a Best Buy shirt. The music cuts off to let you know “Nigga, this the most jarring moment in the series before it cuts to Lawrence giving Tasha the penis of fury. Like, listen, that 15 seconds of backshots was more intense than the various clips of Issa and Daniel having quiet studio sex (Studio sex that’s quiet! Issa was barely sighing, fam!). Afterwards, we see Issa sitting on the couch they threw out before Molly walks over with a bottle of wine and joins her. Issa breaks out into tears and rests her head on Molly’s lap as her best friend consoles her, leading into the credits.
At this point, I honestly feel bad for Issa. For most of the season, I defended Lawrence to my wife and other women. From the beginning, we figure Lawrence is going to be the typical ain’t-shit nigga: sitting home in sweatpants eating cereal, forgetting birthdays, having a beard. It forced me to mentally roll my eyes like “Damn, guess he about to give her a reason to cheat”. However, he made an effort. We watched him settle for a lower paying job just so he could have money. We watched him cook and clean and just try to be a better nigga. Shit, we watched him curve the shit out of Tasha at his Best Buy job. Like, fam, the juicy bank teller came to his retail job with the titties blaring, invited him out and he brings up his girlfriend? This guy has the resolve of an Olympian outside of the Olympic Village. Issa, on the other hand, ended up fucking a producer that attends open mics and then realized she fucked up when she looked at a soap dispenser.
What I appreciate about Insecure is that the women aren’t perfect. This isn’t some quirky Girls type shit where their fuck-ups are cute little misguided gentrifier mistakes; Issa fucked up in a big way and Molly kept fucking up in medium ways that they eventually realized were their faults. However, what really matters is that they have their friendship. I mean, look how it ended. The final time Lawrence passes the couch, its a bunch of niggas sitting on it and he fist bumps one. The final time we see Issa on the couch, it’s with Molly. If you’ve paid attention to any of Lawrence’s interactions with other niggas, you’d see that he didn’t have any real friends like Issa has Molly. He just had niggas telling him to stop letting broads dog him. Once Issa actually dogged him (like, St. Bernarded that man), he finally achieved his true ain’t-shit nigga form.
Like, listen, the moment I saw Ms. Thicker Than Cold Peanut Butter at the bank when he cashed his unemployment check, I was like “He gon fuck her”. When Issa cheated, I was like “Oh, he definitely gonna fuck her now. Aw, fam, I can’t wait to see her butt ass naked niggaitsHBOyouknowtheygonnashowthatassfeelmesmellmehermhermherm *Orlando Brown voice*”. When the moment finally came, however, it was bitter as fuck. He called Issa from the strip club and put up a whole front like he was waving his white flag, just for her to come home and see all of his shit gone except the Best Buy shirt. The editing just made it worst because before we could even register what was happening, we see Lawrence balls-deep, hands-full-of-hair, Rico Strong stroking Tasha fine ass.
As a result of this episode (Shit, the entire show) people have been on twitter fuming since midnight. Black women are super pissed that Lawrence found a new pussy and home so fast and black men are mad that he turned Tasha down the first time. Everyone’s opinions on this season finale of Insecure is for another thinkpiece entirely. What we can definitely take from the show, though, is that it’s about true friendship. Most people probably felt that the show was about Lawrence and Issa’s relationship, but it’s really about Issa and Molly’s. Both of them are dealing with life and not really knowing where to go, but no matter how mad they are, they’re always ready to help each other.
I couldn’t even stay mad at Issa Rae. Like, if she started crying in front of me, I might start crying too and shit.
