‘Insecure’ Season 3 Finale: Ghosts of relationships past haunt Issa and her whole crew

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So, we’re done with another season of Insecure. And…I’m not sure yet how much ground the characters have truly covered.

“Ghost-Like” is clearly named as such because it promises to deal with Nathan’s disappearance, since there’s no way the season could end without some resolve there. It could also reference encounters with the ghosts of past relationships, as Kelli (Natasha Rothwell) encounters a former boo during an outdoor showing of Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, and Molly runs into Jared (Langston Kerman), whom we haven’t seen since season 1, at the same showing.

As I mentioned last week, one of the prevailing Insecure gripes is that the characters don’t seem to grow much from season to season. In fairness, as a friend pointed out, very little time has elapsed from seasons – it’s not like we’re talking the years required for a lot of people to get better – but it’s tough for viewers to remain patient. This finale seems to cover ground on this maturity, but I truly believe that Issa (Issa Rae) and Molly (Yvonne Orji) need to make some big-girl moves in the already-green-lit season 4 before the show chokes on its own repetition.

Thanks for joining me here every week, and here are some more thoughts on the season finale: 

When being a ride-or-die goes wrong: It doesn’t surprise me one bit that Molly (Yvonne Orji) stood tall when Nathan (Kendrick Sampson) finally resurfaced at Issa’s place after a full month with flowers and a card. But I knew as soon as Molly told him to piss off that the whole thing was going to end poorly. Sure, Issa said she didn’t want drama on her dirty 30th, but she spent the last two episodes fawning over Nathan. She was going to be pissed off when Molly finally mentioned their encounter (as an aside like she didn’t know better). Folks need to clean their own houses, not let their homies do it for ‘em.

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So wait, is Molly getting it together or nah? The end of the episode gives us the impression that she is finally recognizing the error of her ways as she calls up the Asian dude Andrew (Alexander Hodge) to essentially apologize for her interminable bullshit and he (remarkably) seems receptive to it. This is right after she’s humbled by the reappearance of Jared with a girlfriend (is it just me, or do these recurring characters have a lot of chance encounters in a city of 4 million people?). Molly may have had a Come to Jesus with herself, but she’s definitely about to get that forced humble on the gig as Taurean (Leonard Robinson) leaves her alone on a big client. Expect season 4 to kick off with the stress of handling that client on her own.

The dangling Lawrence remains somewhat obnoxious: Lawrence (Jay Ellis) has a meeting with his dad (shout out to Harry Lennix) in which the former was bestowed wisdom that he should have had well before his 30ish age. He thinks his parents had no baggage when they met, fell in love and lived happily ever after. But those of us over the age of 23 know that there’s no such thing as an immaculate relationship with a tidy bow on top. Most of Lawrence’s appearances in recent episodes suggest that he might get things going with Issa again until…he meets with Tiffany’s friend (Christina Elmore) for a date just after Issa links with her for networking. It seems to be leading to love triangles, diamonds and octagons…but I hope that’s not the case.

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Other thoughts:

• Nathan sounds like he might be clinically depressed, but he did a terrible job in conveying that to Issa and the audience. Her closing the door on him to finally get her apartment together is an interesting cliffhanger, but it should be pretty cut and dry whether she would want to deal with a man capable of literally leaving the state without telling his boo.

• Keen-eyed fans of the show will recognize the white lady passing out flyers for indie rock night as the same one who offered Issa a flyer in the season 2 finale.

• Chad found Jesus in the last episode, and now he’s suddenly back with his fiancé Leah, who apparently “forgave” him for his philandering ways thanks to lots of begging he wasn’t willing to admit to his boys. But he does want his boys to think he went back because of her great head. Because n—a. N—a….

• I’m glad we got to revisit the Beat Crew gig that Issa is now angling for since it was introduced a million episodes ago. I thought it would be a great move for her and the show just…let everyone forget about it.

• Did any of you really think that Jared was at this movie with his gay lover just because he got with a dude in college that one time? I knew immediately that it was more of Molly’s f—ery at work.

• We all knew Issa’s weak-ass block party was never going to get off the ground with her doing it by herself. Hopefully the shit she lined up this episode will prove fruitful for next season.

• As usual, Chad and Kelli stole the episode. The Quantrell encounter elicited audible cackles. They really, truly need their own spinoff when Insecure inevitably ends in a couple seasons.

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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.