Insecure Season 2, Episode 5: Hella Shook

There’s this saying in writing classes that if you have a loaded gun appear in the first scene, in the next scene it better go off. In “Hella Shook,” hella guns that Issa Rae left all over the first half of the season — Molly’s parents’ vow renewal, Dro and Molly hooking up, even Lawrence finding out about Daniel — are popping off with particularly explosive results.
But first: Issa. In the beginning of the episode, she’s impatient in her car, questing for dick without much regard for anyone else’s feelings. Toward the end of her arc this episode, she’s impatient in her car and still on the hunt, but maybe on the way to empathy, a tiny li’l bit?
At first, it looks as though as she and Daniel are a couple, probably because of the ease with which they interact. But her abrupt plans to exit and vagueness on being available the next night suggest otherwise. And consciously or not, she must know she’s got the upper hand in their relationship, or at least that Daniel’s not out in these streets. “You ain’t got no plans,” she teases him, when he tries to act like he’s maybe busy, too.
Issa is all about her ho-tation, with Neighbor Bae/Eddie and ideally this new Tinder guy in addition to Daniel. Molly’s skeptical about Issa and Daniel being just “friends who f*ck”, but as long as her girl is happy, she’s happy. Besides, hoeing seems to be going well for Issa. She has a nice date with the new Tinder guy — an attractive and comic-book-nerdy Latino man in his mid-forties — that doesn’t lead to sex that night but it does lead to a genuine connection and potential future sex (love sounds). Issa seems to really like him and to want to see him again, at least slightly belying her insistence that she ain’t about feelings right now.
She says that about these niggas, but it’s extending to her former work bestie Frieda, too. Issa’s maintaining the status quo at the We Got Y’all program at East 41st High — Vice Principal Gaines is sending primarily black kids to get tutoring but not Latinx kids, even though they make up the majority of the school population — and Frieda is upset that Issa hasn’t spoken up about it. Frieda’s not telling on Issa, but she is disassociating herself from any praise from Joanne. Issa tries to justify her behavior in terms of privilege and racism, buzzwords that would likely stop most of her coworkers in her tracks but not woke Frieda, who seems to know that she can’t convince Issa but finally just expresses disappointment in her.
My mom has always said that when you’re in a romantic relationship you learn a lot about yourself that you wouldn’t necessarily see otherwise. I would argue that when you break up, others learn more about you than they might have otherwise — your most “you” characteristics are thrown into the sharpest relief. Issa has always been stubborn (see her phone call to Ahmal about a childhood argument about Aladdin — “I was right then and I’m right now.”) and selfish (remember the “Broken Pussy” song she rapped in the first episode, where she embarrassed Molly for her own benefit? And um, cheating on Lawrence). But she’s also been a good friend to Molly (see most of their other interactions). Now Issa’s ramped up both of those aspects of her personality, for better or worse.
Speaking of “for better or worse,” at her parents’ vow renewal Molly finds out inadvertently that her dad cheated on her mom. It’s the final blow to her faith in a textbook-perfect marriage. Up until then, she’s been trying for what she imagines at the ideal, even dusting off mortgage broker — oops, marketing consultant — Lionel to act as her on-brand date for the evening. But even though her parents have clearly worked it out and moved on, she can’t (understandably — I mean, past or not, she just found out). And so…

Issa, on the other hand, has crashed, literally. Her focus on getting hers with no regard to anyone else — or the road ahead, to be literal and literary — has led her into a collision. Her car is totaled, and she rear-ended dude so even she can’t soundly dispute that it was her fault. You know what else is wrecked? Me, after Issa puts Daniel in his place (her ho-tation) after he picks her up from the scene.

I appreciate her honesty with him, but it’s tough to see him get hurt by Issa yet again. I wonder if he’ll decide he doesn’t want to spend time with her anymore. If he does, he won’t be the only one — it looks like at the end of the episode, Lawrence potentially blocks Issa on social media after seeing a pic of her and Daniel together and speculating that Issa had cheated on him with Daniel more than just that one time.
Random observations:
— Molly on Daniel: “Wasn’t he the ‘zit you had to pop’? Wait, or was it a ‘rash you had to put ointment on’?”
— And I love Molly’s parents! They’re both hilarious: her mom joking about the dollar-store champagne glasses, and her dad on the cups, for example (“Red cups? What you think this is, Freaknik?”)
— Also, I wondered if for Tinder date Nico, having an early flight was a cover and he is actually married?
— I wonder if Kelli is Internet famous with her pepper-eating antics?
— That cheesy video at Lawrence’s jury duty: “there is no justice without u.” (Also, “nice try” to the faux-militant black girl who failed to get out of jury duty. Goes to show that for those who didn’t know, natural hair does not automatically equal wokeness. Now more than ever, as Issa’s boss would say.
— Regarding Derek telling Lawrence how he could see the appeal of Daniel vs. Lawrence’s lack thereof in his long-term unemployed phase: I wonder if that was the first time anyone had said anything like that to Lawrence?