Talk about a surprise ending. And I don’t mean the one on Power.
Here we are with Insecure, ironing our #TeamNathan logos on our white tees while getting in our feelings about Tiffany (Amanda Seales) opening up to Issa (Issa Rae) about their changing friendship dynamics when, just like that, the Lawrence Hive had a reason to switch from whatever football game they were watching Sunday night.
I admit to being fully surprised, mainly because Rae spent a good amount of this season’s press run being asked about the status of Lawrence (Jay Ellis) and suggesting that he’s past news. There were even stories about how Ellis was nowhere to be found on set or in promotion for the show – kudos to all parties involved for holding on to that secret.
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Other than the reveal, “High-Like” wasn’t a great episode. The ladies hitting up Beyonce’s Coachella, getting dumb-high and devolving into dumb-high hijinks elicited a couple chuckles but seemed otherwise to be beneath the show. Not that anyone on Twitter is talking much about the events of the show preceding the last 10 seconds right now, though. Here are a few takeaways from the episode:
1.“High-Like” is mainly about growing old
The women aren’t children anymore. Tiffany is getting ready to pop, Molly (Yvonne Orji) has work to finish that makes her late to the Airbnb (only to find everyone asleep and having missed the whole-ass first day), and all of their drug-related shenanigans result in some next-day consequences that women a decade younger might’ve shaken off more quickly. Tiffany lamenting to Issa about how things have changed was a sobering reminder for those who are old enough to remember when we turned the corner into old-n—adom and had to get our shit together.
2. The episode’s treatment of drugs surprised me
When I was a child in the 1980s and 1990s, television was heavily influenced by Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign: they conveyed the notion that touching the stuff absolutely ruins lives. The glamorization of MDMA and edibles in the show laughed in the face of that and felt untimely just two days after the death of rapper Mac Miller from a drug overdose. I know nothing is wrong with weed edibles, but considering I grew up thinking a puff of a joint would kill me dead, I acknowledge that I’m something of a square in this regard.
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3. Dudes responded to women unrealistically
While Molly is high on…well…molly…she ends up at the bar talking to one of Nathan’s (Kendrick Sampson) boys, recounting that she hadn’t had sex since she slept with her married friend (Dro). Dude passed Molly off to his friend like he is absolutely disgusted she would do such a thing, instead of being intrigued at the idea that this fine woman hasn’t had sex in a while. Also, when Issa confronts Nathan about why he didn’t text her, he says he was worried about “coming on too strong.” This is after a day of breaking the law, skinny dipping and making out. C’mon, son.
4. Issa and Nathan are destined to get arrested
A Ferris wheel car is maybe two sanitary steps in above a public urinal. So, the fact that Issa and Nathan decide to get it in during the most telegraphed sex scene ever (did anyone who watches television not know what would happen as soon as the wheel started moving?) is pretty damn disgusting. It’s also their second public indecency affair in as many episodes. Nathan is making us light-skinned brothers look more sexually adventurous than many of us are, and I’m waiting on those two fools to wind up in a jail cell. Or with an infection.
5. What does Lawrence’s return really mean?
We see from the highlights of next week’s episode that Lawrence didn’t just pop up for the quick fan-service cameo. But what does his return really mean in the context of the show? I respected Rae’s insistence during interviews that Lawrence is the past and the past often goes away for good, so what I don’t want to see is a Lawrence-Issa-Nathan love triangle. The series has done the love triangle thing. It’s played.
Other notables:
- I guess Issa Rae didn’t learn too much from the condoms controversy last season, eh?
- The best part of the episode was seeing Chad (Neil Brown, Jr.) again. It was obviously trumped by Lawrence after seconds, but dude is definitely my favorite minor character on the show. Seeing Thug Yoda (Tristen J. Winger) was also coo – I mean, “bool.”
- Kelli wound up comically tased after getting kicked out of Coachella for attacking the white girl. But there’s a good chance she would’ve been aggressively hemmed up by a cop in Trump’s America. Give it up for escapism.
- Issa should’ve gotten her ass straight beat for banging pots like that to wake up her people. If I were any of those women, she would not have made it to Coachella on day two, either.
- It was cute and all when Nathan told Issa, “Quitting your job was real brave,” but is dude gonna pay down her bills or nah?
- Who the hell needs a backup battery when operating a Ferris wheel? Is that a thing?
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Dustin J. Seibert is a native Detroiter living in Chicago. Miraculously, people have paid him to be aggressively light-skinned via a computer keyboard for nearly two decades. He loves his own mama slightly more than he loves music and exercises every day only so his French fry intake doesn’t catch up to him. Find him at his own site, wafflecolored.com.