#too late to pretend like y'all are just... looking at books and arranging florals?

[hischiersjohnston]

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE | FIRSTPRINCE + FAVE MOMENTS ( 5 / 10 )

The Red Room and their One Shared Braincell

[insecure-hbo-recaps]

hella shook

Previously: Issa wanted to get a roster going. Molly for some reason didn't know what it was about Sterling K Brown. Dro's marriage was open. Lawrence was used as a prop for a racist threesome. He lied about it. Issa and Daniel made amends.

Issa's in traffic in her fairly new model car I might add. She is on her phone at every red light and doesn't notice that she's on E. She's wearing a black and white cookie coat, look at this:

Ees! Jesus. She stops at exactly 9:45 cents because she's poor. She finally makes it to her destination, serving up a "special delivery, sir" for Daniel. They awkwardly joke about how silly she's being and he opens the door with a smug smile. They're very attuned and cute and happy and whatnot.

Hey! They got honeycomb towers in LA too, apparently. Unless this is a scene where Molly is skyping with Quintin in Chicago, which the immediate shot of an L lets me know it is. See?

God I fucking love my city. That's the green line by the way. (If you're not familiar with Chicago, this is what I mean by "honeycomb towers":)

They're downtown near State and Kinzie, where I once went out with a professor from Boston who I thought looked like Mark Zuckerberg. (Public House is the bar there.) We watched the world series where the red sox won that year and it had been such a fun date, I was really disappointed when I never heard from him again. Oh well - in hindsight whatever I wore is probably not something I would wear now.

Molly is actually in Chicago this time, and Quintin is helping her keep the associates straight. He's wearing a tan vest and Malcolm X glasses and is it this show or somewhere else where they make jokes about a preacher body? Because good grief if I don't think of an old timey Civil Rights Movement era preacher every time I see him, lol. Molly points out there's a lot of black people at this office, and Quintin says he doesn't understand how she could work in the LA office; it reminds him of why he went to Howard.

Quintin asks whether Molly has said anything about her pay inequality but Molly hasn't. He asks why she isn't considering leaving, because their firm is not the only fish in the sea. Obviously this has never occurred to Molly. It's like she gets blinders on about certain things she thinks are acceptable or that she should want or be doing, and is incapable of considering any options outside of that. Apparently Molly is stuck in a sunken cost fallacy, which means you end up sticking out a situation that has long since expired just because you've already invested so much time into it already. Quintin encouages her to consider her options. Oh, there's the "pastor's body" joke. He really does look like a pastor.

Back in LA, Issa is getting dressed while Daniel is still in bed watching Due North. He asks whether she has plans the next night, but Issa demurs, unsure of his intentions. Daniel's body is insane.

Elsewhere, Lawrence is on a run with his coworkers, the blonde and Arpana. He won't be at work the next day because he has jury duty. Another coworker shows up and we get the exposition that they are training for a marathon. I know people hang out with their coworkers like this but I am antisocial and weird so I never do and never have, which sucks. This is how most people make friends as adults.

Molly is back home now. At her apartment, she and Issa are preparing floral arrangements for Molly's parents' vow renewal. Issa can't make it because she has a "work retreat." Daniel texts, and off the look on Issa's face, Molly inquires about it. Issa tries to play it off, but Molly knows this is not nothing. "Daniel and I have history, but we always bounce back." Molly is skeptical that either of them can do this without catching feelings, but Issa insists none of that is on her agenda right now: she has Daniel, "Neighbor Bae," and a Latino man she is going out with that night.

Meanwhile, at jury duty, Lawrence gets a text from Derek inviting him to his birthday party. Lawrence hesitates, assuming Issa will be there, but agrees to go. Bored, he scrolls through his facebook and happens across a photo from the night of the Kiss and Grind party; apparently Kelli's pic accidentallycaught Issa smiling and chatting with Daniel in the background.

Now that is a stroke of bad luck. Lawrence is so distracted by this news he barely hears them call him for briefing.

Back at the We Got Y'all offices, the supervisor is expositing that they have a director position open. Naturally the overeager white dude thinks this is his time to shine. They are going to be having a retreat Saturday morning and wants everyone to partner up. Issa looks over at Frieda who awkwardly looks away. Issa decides to brush it off, but when she whispers a joke and Frieda continues to look uncomfortable, the smile slides off Issa's face.

She follows Frieda to the breakroom, asking to talk. Frieda tensely explains that she isn't comfortable with what's happening at the school, but Issa still doesn't see a problem. This was around the time I started to think Issa was in the wrong the first time I saw this season... not because Issa is siding with bigotry but because she doesn't know better than to talk frankly about racism with whites in the workplace. That fact that Issa was so clueless as to be straightforward with a Clueless White Person on the thing that they fear most - an issue concerning race where they may be even indirectly accused of being a GASP racist - just sort of underlined for me that she was compounding a wrong instead of fixing it. "It must be nice to have the privilege to choose to be upset over this," Issa says, and the fact that she doesn't back down lets Frieda get the moral high ground.

Inglewood. Molly is at her parents' place unloading flowers for the renewal. Dro is her childhood next door neighbor and he is there to a.) celebrate Molly's parent's marriage and b.) smooth things over about basically asking her to take part in his open marriage. He asks if she never thought of him like that; "I mean yeah maybe for a minute when you had your colored contacts on," Molly says. Light skints aren't still in style anymore are they? Exoticals for men is always kind of a weird area, I think.

Molly says she's thought about it, but the marriage thing "is just not how" she sees her life. Dro is cool with that and they agree to stay friends, ribbing each other like only childhood friends can do.

Jury Duty. There's black woman who answers a question about "bias against police" by standing up to reveal her Black Lives Matter t-shirt that I'm unclear whether or not she meant it or just wanted to get out of jury duty. "Not buying it," the judge says, but the juror is dismissed. Lawrence is scrolling through Daniel's gram while all this happens.

Back at Molly's, her mom is saying something about the dollar store champagne flutes she bought, and what is with moms and dollar stores? My momma loves her some dollar store home goods. They lightly push Molly, as you do your children, about when she's getting married. Mom wants to know what's the hold up but Dad knows Molly isn't going to settle. Apparently Molly has a brother, or two brothers, or a gay brother, I'm unclear. I think one of them is famous for something or other though.

Date night. Issa shows up at a low lit ambient bar looking for Mexican bae. "Come through, Tinder," she says when she spots him. She's wearing a tight blue dress and a TWA. Mexican bae seems like he's in his late 30s. Issa's inner monologue horndogs about horchata. Bruh, rumchata is delicious. I haven't managed to buy it myself yet because that shit costs like 20$ but it tastes just like Christmas. And like, really good bread pudding. I should try to buy it at least for the holidays. Anyway, Issa is fantasizing about boning him right on the bar.

We know he's a good guy because he says isn't a martini guy and they joke about comics. I can't with how comic book lore has taken over American entertainment. I liked the Tobey Maguire Spider Mans but now there's like 18 in-universe comic book shows on TV and like four comic book movies at any given time... I honestly thought the comic book thing would have faded a long time ago by now and we'd be back to some other mythical fan lore like angels and ghosts again. (Zombie lore is still popular, and I think vampire lore is still hanging ten, so we need to go to demons or the undead or something.) They eventually move to another table, signifying that the date has lasted a few hours. The waiter brings by the check and Issa does the fake purse grab. You know, I used to adamantly refuse to do that (and the one time I was *asked* to split was by a nerdy black dude I met in a hipster dive who approached me by asking if I was latina - I must emphasize that I do not look latina whatsoever), like even pretend like I was going to pay. Now, I just offer to split. I usually never have to still, which is good, but also, I'm not poor anymore either so. My thing now is taking care to note that the waitress puts the check on the guy's side instead of in the middle - that's when I know the universe wants me to feel good about myself.

Anyway, they have had a good night and Issa is clearly thinking about asking him back to her place. But, we know he's a Good Guy because he says he can't, "but this is an excuse for us to do this again!"

Saturday morning work retreat. There's a generic snack bar set up. Issa is texting with Daniel, after canceling on him because of her date the previous night. Anyway the work team does a boring team building exercise so that the Clueless White People can make Clueless White People assumptions about the kind of trouble kids might be having at home. Issa and Frieda take a few passive aggressive jabs at each other and when it's time to pair up Frieda quickly finds someone else, leaving Issa stuck with Sujata Day. I don't know if she's supposed to be Indian in this one.

Vow Renewal. Apparently Molly decided to invite Sterling K Brown who is wearing a crazy colorful suit like only a person whose body has been altered to look good in Hollywood could do:

Molly's wig actually does look good, don't mind the screenshot. Dro and his parents show up (his dad is latino, his mom is ambiguous brown). Dro hangs around as his parents walk off and Sterling K Brown possessively wraps an arm around Molly, who introduces them. Just so you know that this is going on:

Do y'all take notice of stuff like this or no? Men, even men who are supposedly friends with each other, I find pull rank like this in front of women all the time. I was seeing a guy and one night we were hanging out with his roommate. They went outside to smoke and I tagged along. My dude and I were sharing his cigarette (I don't smoke but I find this sort of thing cute) and the other guy offered me his. My dude didn't think anything of it, but it's little shit like that that always feels like to me men are playing ego games with each other and/or always prepared to slide in the DMs of someone else's girl. (I also tend to think everyone is hitting on me, so that bias tends to reinterpret things.) But, it's the subtlety. And I think if more people paid attention they'd notice things like this more often. At any rate, Sterling K Brown is clearly glad to be there with Molly and possibly senses that Dro is a threat. They all play polite and it's only mildly awkward.

At a bar across town, Lawrence is having drinks with Derek and grilling him for information about Issa and Daniel. Ha. That's way more straightforward than he usually is when he talks to Chad. Derek says that after Tasha, he and Tiffany had to stop discussing them because they always took sides. Lawrence is preoccupied and insecure about Issa seeing Daniel now... maybe she had been seeing him the entire time? Derek says Issa is too dorky to be sneaky. "That's exactly why you wouldn't expect it," Lawrence says. He clearly is reiminaging their entire relationship and second guessing what he thought it was.

"Honestly... this ain't all on Issa," Derek says. "You spent two years unemployed, not doing shit, letting your woman take care of you. Kinda left the door open." Lawrence does that thing of rotating his jaw and accepts this silently. He tries to say it doesn't justify cheating, but Derek says he understands why she would be attracted to someone who could make things happen.

Vow renewal. Molly's brother or whatever asks "is that you?" and HA! Haven't heard that in ages. "So it's a pity date?" he asks. Molly lists off his positive qualities and how she wants to give it a shot. Her brother says just because she dates a good guy that doesn't translate into a relationship. Her brother (no, her brother's best friend) apparently is married to a stripper that trapped him. He tells Molly if she isn't feeling him she shouldn't date him. And because Molly has no understanding of what she wants out of a relationship or from men generally, this is the point where she no longer understands if she should be on a date with Sterling K Brown. He doesn't deserve this.

Bathroom. Issa calls her brother to check whether or not she might be in the wrong with the situation with Frieda. Check out this gloriously dressed fashion forward ass nigga:

Issa's brother doesn't tell her what she wants to hear so she hangs up in his face. To make herself feel better, she responds to a random sext from Neighbor Bae, sending back a nude before she gets busted by Mrs. Frizzle. Issa, at least go into the stall.

Molly is partially hosting this party, so she goes to greet a couple of great aunts. As nosy older black women, they immediately start inquiring about the delicious slice of man she chose to parade around this family event. Which... if you're not sure if you want to date a guy, don't fucking bring him to a parent-centered family event maybe. The aunts start talking about how amazing it is that Molly's parent's marriage lasted 35 years "after what he put my sister through." This is news to Molly.

Issa is texting at a red light when she misses it turn green. A "Potential Bae" sends her a dick pic and she rear ends the car in front of her. This is where I stopped being on Issa's team. No woman, no self possessed black woman, has any business being so distracted by dick she would open herself up to litigation, the loss of transportation, and unspecified auto repair. Like, I can no longer abide this level of thirst. This was when Issa went too far. Also, I spared you a screenshot of the dick pic.

Back that the renewal, Molly is grilling her brother about the state of her parents' marriage. It turns out that Dad cheated on Mom and "they worked through it." Molly seems almost more offended that her mom put up with it than her dad cheated at all. And this is the part where Yvonne Orji had to do an emotional scene. And it was so bad it threatened to diminish my enjoyment of the rest of the series so what you need to know is: 1. the acting here is really really bad, so bad I don't know how they didn't insist on more takes and/or cut away often enough so that you didn't notice how bad it was and b. Molly can't deal with the reality that there is no such thing as a fairy tale relationship. Not all relationships have cheating but a fuckton of them do, so everyone needs to just chill. Also, remind me at a later date to tell you about how I recently found out a guy I had been seeing was married and his wife had their first kid earlier this year. It was fucking horrid. (This is not an endorsement from the "All Men Cheat" school of logic as I, personally, have never been cheated on in a relationship.)

Sterling K Brown tries to console Molly but she stomps away, leaving Dro to chase after her. Bitch move. Molly's being an asshole all around. Bitch, how are you whining about relationships when you left your fucking date at a party at your parents' house to leave with another dude? Molly is way out of line here, and her behavior deserves no sympathy at all.

Issa calls Daniel to let him know she can't make it tonight because she got into a car accident. He offers to pick her up. She tries to beg off but he insists, and his caring and eagerness to help is good to see. One of the worst things about being an introverted holier than thou asshole is that whenever I need help, it always hits me really hard that I really have no one to call.

Meanwhile, this is Lawrence's Saturday night:

GOD those are the worst, lol. He sits there ruminating for awhile and finally defriends. "I don't wanna see this shit," Lawrence thinks.

Dro is driving Molly home. So... she just gone leave her car (and her date) in the interests of her thirst or what? Because I'm not buying that she's so distraught she just needed to get home despite the common decency of leaving on no notice like that. You wanted to provoke Dro's dick and we all know it. No smoothing over on this ridiculous behavior, Molly. She continues being all "distraught," and while I have to offer points for the damsel and distress routine in principle, I believe in polite society more, so be thirsty on your own time, not when it inconveniences or hurts someone else. Molly laments how she spends all her time trying to find someone like her dad only to find out their marriage is bullshit. I suppose if I had grown up in a married two parent household it would come as news to me, too, that parents can be just as ain't shit as anyone else. Still. I find this childish. Dro lends a sympathetic ear and Molly eats it up.

Daniel shows up to pick up Issa and gives her a hug in reassurance since she's just been in a car accident. Instead of abiding this silently where even if she doesn't want it she can use it to her advantage at a later date, Issa decides to be clear that Daniel knows they are not dating only each other and are both seeing other people. Issa isn't sure if she was as up front about that as she should have been the last time they slept together. Daniel reacts disappointedly in a way that telegraphs he did not know that was what they were doing. On the other hand, I feel like men pull this shit a lot and maybe it was good for him to know he isn't the only fish in her pond. Idk. On this issue I have erred toward casual probably more often than I should have, to regretful effects, so for me the jury is out on that.

Dro walks Molly to her door and her building is so lovely. Oh, it turns out Dro drove Molly's car home. That kinda makes it even more shitty that she left Sterling K Brown? When Dro goes to leave, because we must be overtly aware of the stupid and ridiculous choices they make, she pulls him back and kisses him. Then we cut to them boning a second later. Excellent sex scene. Extremely poor choice.

[insecure-hbo-the-recaps]

hella shook

Previously: Issa wanted to get a roster going. Molly for some reason didn’t know what it was about Sterling K Brown. Dro’s marriage was open. Lawrence was used as a prop for a racist threesome. He lied about it. Issa and Daniel made amends.

Issa’s in traffic in her fairly new model car I might add. She is on her phone at every red light and doesn’t notice that she’s on E. She’s wearing a black and white cookie coat, look at this:

Ees! Jesus. She stops at exactly 9:45 cents because she’s poor. She finally makes it to her destination, serving up a “special delivery, sir” for Daniel. They awkwardly joke about how silly she’s being and he opens the door with a smug smile. They’re very attuned and cute and happy and whatnot.

Hey! They got honeycomb towers in LA too, apparently. Unless this is a scene where Molly is skyping with Quintin in Chicago, which the immediate shot of an L lets me know it is. See?

God I fucking love my city. That’s the green line by the way. (If you’re not familiar with Chicago, this is what I mean by “honeycomb towers”:)

They’re downtown near State and Kinzie, where I once went out with a professor from Boston who I thought looked like Mark Zuckerberg. (Public House is the bar there.) We watched the world series where the red sox won that year and it had been such a fun date, I was really disappointed when I never heard from him again. Oh well - in hindsight whatever I wore is probably not something I would wear now.

Molly is actually in Chicago this time, and Quintin is helping her keep the associates straight. He’s wearing a tan vest and Malcolm X glasses and is it this show or somewhere else where they make jokes about a preacher body? Because good grief if I don’t think of an old timey Civil Rights Movement era preacher every time I see him, lol. Molly points out there’s a lot of black people at this office, and Quintin says he doesn’t understand how she could work in the LA office; it reminds him of why he went to Howard.

Quintin asks whether Molly has said anything about her pay inequality but Molly hasn’t. He asks why she isn’t considering leaving, because their firm is not the only fish in the sea. Obviously this has never occurred to Molly. It’s like she gets blinders on about certain things she thinks are acceptable or that she should want or be doing, and is incapable of considering any options outside of that. Apparently Molly is stuck in a sunken cost fallacy, which means you end up sticking out a situation that has long since expired just because you’ve already invested so much time into it already. Quintin encouages her to consider her options. Oh, there’s the “pastor’s body” joke. He really does look like a pastor.

Back in LA, Issa is getting dressed while Daniel is still in bed watching Due North. He asks whether she has plans the next night, but Issa demurs, unsure of his intentions. Daniel’s body is insane.

Elsewhere, Lawrence is on a run with his coworkers, the blonde and Arpana. He won’t be at work the next day because he has jury duty. Another coworker shows up and we get the exposition that they are training for a marathon. I know people hang out with their coworkers like this but I am antisocial and weird so I never do and never have, which sucks. This is how most people make friends as adults.

Molly is back home now. At her apartment, she and Issa are preparing floral arrangements for Molly’s parents’ vow renewal. Issa can’t make it because she has a “work retreat.” Daniel texts, and off the look on Issa’s face, Molly inquires about it. Issa tries to play it off, but Molly knows this is not nothing. “Daniel and I have history, but we always bounce back.” Molly is skeptical that either of them can do this without catching feelings, but Issa insists none of that is on her agenda right now: she has Daniel, “Neighbor Bae,” and a Latino man she is going out with that night.

Meanwhile, at jury duty, Lawrence gets a text from Derek inviting him to his birthday party. Lawrence hesitates, assuming Issa will be there, but agrees to go. Bored, he scrolls through his facebook and happens across a photo from the night of the Kiss and Grind party; apparently Kelli’s pic accidentallycaught Issa smiling and chatting with Daniel in the background.

Now that is a stroke of bad luck. Lawrence is so distracted by this news he barely hears them call him for briefing.

Back at the We Got Y'all offices, the supervisor is expositing that they have a director position open. Naturally the overeager white dude thinks this is his time to shine. They are going to be having a retreat Saturday morning and wants everyone to partner up. Issa looks over at Frieda who awkwardly looks away. Issa decides to brush it off, but when she whispers a joke and Frieda continues to look uncomfortable, the smile slides off Issa’s face.

She follows Frieda to the breakroom, asking to talk. Frieda tensely explains that she isn’t comfortable with what’s happening at the school, but Issa still doesn’t see a problem. This was around the time I started to think Issa was in the wrong the first time I saw this season… not because Issa is siding with bigotry but because she doesn’t know better than to talk frankly about racism with whites in the workplace. That fact that Issa was so clueless as to be straightforward with a Clueless White Person on the thing that they fear most - an issue concerning race where they may be even indirectly accused of being a GASP racist - just sort of underlined for me that she was compounding a wrong instead of fixing it. “It must be nice to have the privilege to choose to be upset over this,” Issa says, and the fact that she doesn’t back down lets Frieda get the moral high ground.

Inglewood. Molly is at her parents’ place unloading flowers for the renewal. Dro is her childhood next door neighbor and he is there to a.) celebrate Molly’s parent’s marriage and b.) smooth things over about basically asking her to take part in his open marriage. He asks if she never thought of him like that; “I mean yeah maybe for a minute when you had your colored contacts on,” Molly says. Light skints aren’t still in style anymore are they? Exoticals for men is always kind of a weird area, I think.

Molly says she’s thought about it, but the marriage thing “is just not how” she sees her life. Dro is cool with that and they agree to stay friends, ribbing each other like only childhood friends can do.

Jury Duty. There’s black woman who answers a question about “bias against police” by standing up to reveal her Black Lives Matter t-shirt that I’m unclear whether or not she meant it or just wanted to get out of jury duty. “Not buying it,” the judge says, but the juror is dismissed. Lawrence is scrolling through Daniel’s gram while all this happens.

Back at Molly’s, her mom is saying something about the dollar store champagne flutes she bought, and what is with moms and dollar stores? My momma loves her some dollar store home goods. They lightly push Molly, as you do your children, about when she’s getting married. Mom wants to know what’s the hold up but Dad knows Molly isn’t going to settle. Apparently Molly has a brother, or two brothers, or a gay brother, I’m unclear. I think one of them is famous for something or other though.

Date night. Issa shows up at a low lit ambient bar looking for Mexican bae. “Come through, Tinder,” she says when she spots him. She’s wearing a tight blue dress and a TWA. Mexican bae seems like he’s in his late 30s. Issa’s inner monologue horndogs about horchata. Bruh, rumchata is delicious. I haven’t managed to buy it myself yet because that shit costs like 20$ but it tastes just like Christmas. And like, really good bread pudding. I should try to buy it at least for the holidays. Anyway, Issa is fantasizing about boning him right on the bar.

We know he’s a good guy because he says isn’t a martini guy and they joke about comics. I can’t with how comic book lore has taken over American entertainment. I liked the Tobey Maguire Spider Mans but now there’s like 18 in-universe comic book shows on TV and like four comic book movies at any given time… I honestly thought the comic book thing would have faded a long time ago by now and we’d be back to some other mythical fan lore like angels and ghosts again. (Zombie lore is still popular, and I think vampire lore is still hanging ten, so we need to go to demons or the undead or something.) They eventually move to another table, signifying that the date has lasted a few hours. The waiter brings by the check and Issa does the fake purse grab. You know, I used to adamantly refuse to do that (and the one time I was *asked* to split was by a nerdy black dude I met in a hipster dive who approached me by asking if I was latina - I must emphasize that I do not look latina whatsoever), like even pretend like I was going to pay. Now, I just offer to split. I usually never have to still, which is good, but also, I’m not poor anymore either so. My thing now is taking care to note that the waitress puts the check on the guy’s side instead of in the middle - that’s when I know the universe wants me to feel good about myself.

Anyway, they have had a good night and Issa is clearly thinking about asking him back to her place. But, we know he’s a Good Guy because he says he can’t, “but this is an excuse for us to do this again!”

Saturday morning work retreat. There’s a generic snack bar set up. Issa is texting with Daniel, after canceling on him because of her date the previous night. Anyway the work team does a boring team building exercise so that the Clueless White People can make Clueless White People assumptions about the kind of trouble kids might be having at home. Issa and Frieda take a few passive aggressive jabs at each other and when it’s time to pair up Frieda quickly finds someone else, leaving Issa stuck with Sujata Day. I don’t know if she’s supposed to be Indian in this one.

Vow Renewal. Apparently Molly decided to invite Sterling K Brown who is wearing a crazy colorful suit like only a person whose body has been altered to look good in Hollywood could do:

Molly’s wig actually does look good, don’t mind the screenshot. Dro and his parents show up (his dad is latino, his mom is ambiguous brown). Dro hangs around as his parents walk off and Sterling K Brown possessively wraps an arm around Molly, who introduces them. Just so you know that this is going on:

Do y'all take notice of stuff like this or no? Men, even men who are supposedly friends with each other, I find pull rank like this in front of women all the time. I was seeing a guy and one night we were hanging out with his roommate. They went outside to smoke and I tagged along. My dude and I were sharing his cigarette (I don’t smoke but I find this sort of thing cute) and the other guy offered me his. My dude didn’t think anything of it, but it’s little shit like that that always feels like to me men are playing ego games with each other and/or always prepared to slide in the DMs of someone else’s girl. (I also tend to think everyone is hitting on me, so that bias tends to reinterpret things.) But, it’s the subtlety. And I think if more people paid attention they’d notice things like this more often. At any rate, Sterling K Brown is clearly glad to be there with Molly and possibly senses that Dro is a threat. They all play polite and it’s only mildly awkward.

At a bar across town, Lawrence is having drinks with Derek and grilling him for information about Issa and Daniel. Ha. That’s way more straightforward than he usually is when he talks to Chad. Derek says that after Tasha, he and Tiffany had to stop discussing them because they always took sides. Lawrence is preoccupied and insecure about Issa seeing Daniel now… maybe she had been seeing him the entire time? Derek says Issa is too dorky to be sneaky. “That’s exactly why you wouldn’t expect it,” Lawrence says. He clearly is reiminaging their entire relationship and second guessing what he thought it was.

“Honestly… this ain’t all on Issa,” Derek says. “You spent two years unemployed, not doing shit, letting your woman take care of you. Kinda left the door open.” Lawrence does that thing of rotating his jaw and accepts this silently. He tries to say it doesn’t justify cheating, but Derek says he understands why she would be attracted to someone who could make things happen.

Vow renewal. Molly’s brother or whatever asks “is that you?” and HA! Haven’t heard that in ages. “So it’s a pity date?” he asks. Molly lists off his positive qualities and how she wants to give it a shot. Her brother says just because she dates a good guy that doesn’t translate into a relationship. Her brother (no, her brother’s best friend) apparently is married to a stripper that trapped him. He tells Molly if she isn’t feeling him she shouldn’t date him. And because Molly has no understanding of what she wants out of a relationship or from men generally, this is the point where she no longer understands if she should be on a date with Sterling K Brown. He doesn’t deserve this.

Bathroom. Issa calls her brother to check whether or not she might be in the wrong with the situation with Frieda. Check out this gloriously dressed fashion forward ass nigga:

Issa’s brother doesn’t tell her what she wants to hear so she hangs up in his face. To make herself feel better, she responds to a random sext from Neighbor Bae, sending back a nude before she gets busted by Mrs. Frizzle. Issa, at least go into the stall.

Molly is partially hosting this party, so she goes to greet a couple of great aunts. As nosy older black women, they immediately start inquiring about the delicious slice of man she chose to parade around this family event. Which… if you’re not sure if you want to date a guy, don’t fucking bring him to a parent-centered family event maybe. The aunts start talking about how amazing it is that Molly’s parent’s marriage lasted 35 years “after what he put my sister through.” This is news to Molly.

Issa is texting at a red light when she misses it turn green. A “Potential Bae” sends her a dick pic and she rear ends the car in front of her. This is where I stopped being on Issa’s team. No woman, no self possessed black woman, has any business being so distracted by dick she would open herself up to litigation, the loss of transportation, and unspecified auto repair. Like, I can no longer abide this level of thirst. This was when Issa went too far. Also, I spared you a screenshot of the dick pic.

Back that the renewal, Molly is grilling her brother about the state of her parents’ marriage. It turns out that Dad cheated on Mom and “they worked through it.” Molly seems almost more offended that her mom put up with it than her dad cheated at all. And this is the part where Yvonne Orji had to do an emotional scene. And it was so bad it threatened to diminish my enjoyment of the rest of the series so what you need to know is: 1. the acting here is really really bad, so bad I don’t know how they didn’t insist on more takes and/or cut away often enough so that you didn’t notice how bad it was and b. Molly can’t deal with the reality that there is no such thing as a fairy tale relationship. Not all relationships have cheating but a fuckton of them do, so everyone needs to just chill. Also, remind me at a later date to tell you about how I recently found out a guy I had been seeing was married and his wife had their first kid earlier this year. It was fucking horrid. (This is not an endorsement from the “All Men Cheat” school of logic as I, personally, have never been cheated on in a relationship.)

Sterling K Brown tries to console Molly but she stomps away, leaving Dro to chase after her. Bitch move. Molly’s being an asshole all around. Bitch, how are you whining about relationships when you left your fucking date at a party at your parents’ house to leave with another dude? Molly is way out of line here, and her behavior deserves no sympathy at all.

Issa calls Daniel to let him know she can’t make it tonight because she got into a car accident. He offers to pick her up. She tries to beg off but he insists, and his caring and eagerness to help is good to see. One of the worst things about being an introverted holier than thou asshole is that whenever I need help, it always hits me really hard that I really have no one to call.

Meanwhile, this is Lawrence’s Saturday night:

GOD those are the worst, lol. He sits there ruminating for awhile and finally defriends. “I don’t wanna see this shit,” Lawrence thinks.

Dro is driving Molly home. So… she just gone leave her car (and her date) in the interests of her thirst or what? Because I’m not buying that she’s so distraught she just needed to get home despite the common decency of leaving on no notice like that. You wanted to provoke Dro’s dick and we all know it. No smoothing over on this ridiculous behavior, Molly. She continues being all “distraught,” and while I have to offer points for the damsel and distress routine in principle, I believe in polite society more, so be thirsty on your own time, not when it inconveniences or hurts someone else. Molly laments how she spends all her time trying to find someone like her dad only to find out their marriage is bullshit. I suppose if I had grown up in a married two parent household it would come as news to me, too, that parents can be just as ain’t shit as anyone else. Still. I find this childish. Dro lends a sympathetic ear and Molly eats it up.

Daniel shows up to pick up Issa and gives her a hug in reassurance since she’s just been in a car accident. Instead of abiding this silently where even if she doesn’t want it she can use it to her advantage at a later date, Issa decides to be clear that Daniel knows they are not dating only each other and are both seeing other people. Issa isn’t sure if she was as up front about that as she should have been the last time they slept together. Daniel reacts disappointedly in a way that telegraphs he did not know that was what they were doing. On the other hand, I feel like men pull this shit a lot and maybe it was good for him to know he isn’t the only fish in her pond. Idk. On this issue I have erred toward casual probably more often than I should have, to regretful effects, so for me the jury is out on that.

Dro walks Molly to her door and her building is so lovely. Oh, it turns out Dro drove Molly’s car home. That kinda makes it even more shitty that she left Sterling K Brown? When Dro goes to leave, because we must be overtly aware of the stupid and ridiculous choices they make, she pulls him back and kisses him. Then we cut to them boning a second later. Excellent sex scene. Extremely poor choice.