‘Insecure’ season 4 recap: Lowkey done with Molly and her negativity
OPINION: Writer Brooke Obie says she's had it with Issa's attorney bestie after episode one reveals fissures in the ladies' once-solid friendship
On the season 4 premiere of Insecure, Lawrence is back to ruin more things. This time it’s the budding friendship between his ex of five years, our heroine Issa Dee, and the new woman he’s dating, the dope ass PR specialist Condola.
When Issa finds out the woman who is helping her make her anti-gentrification block party in Inglewood come true is also dating Lawrence, she can’t help but imagine the two getting it on right in front of her, and Lawrence loving Condola for all the ways she’s different from Issa.
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Still, she wants to be mature about the situation and keep her friendship and working relationship with Condola on track. It’s something her hilarious friend Kelly would call “growth.” But as usual, Issa’s BFF Molly has something negative to say.
“You know your life don’t have to be this messy, right? Sometimes, I think you like that sh*t,” she tells Issa.
Molly in season 4 of HBO’s “Insecure.” (Photo: HBO)
In Molly’s defense, Issa is no stranger to mess, and it’s always good for friends to hold each other accountable. But Molly’s cutting comments don’t feel like accountability —especially not to Issa. They read like jealousy and bitterness.
Molly makes her remarks after Issa has just hosted a successful mixer to gain sponsors for her block party. Issa had also just publicly praised Condola for all of her help.
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It’s almost a mirror image of season one’s episode seven when Issa hosts a similar fundraiser to help at-risk youth in Inglewood. Except then, it’s Molly whom she relied on heavily to help her close deals with rich potential donors. It’s Molly she needs to run interference for when her fling Daniel shows up and threatens to expose Issa’s cheating on Lawrence. Molly was her rock.
But things have changed. Molly’s essentially useless at this event, other than showing up to watch Issa and Condola succeed on their own.
Condola in season 4 of HBO’s “Insecure.” (Photo: HBO)
Meanwhile, Molly is creating drama by getting in her feelings when her Asian Bae tells her he’s still dating other people and assumes she is too. In the middle of Issa’s mixer, Molly interrupts Issa’s grind to pout about her casual dating partner’s casual dating habits.
Instead of getting annoyed with Molly, Issa leaves her with a reassuring, “You got it!” and goes on to knock her event out of the park — one that Molly derided earlier as “homegrown.”
Molly even took a jab at Issa’s casual sex friend (aka TSA Bae) for being at the mixer and providing free security for Issa.
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“We bringing f**k buddies out the house now?” she asks Issa, even though this dude seems to have been of more use to Issa in one episode (centering her pleasure and comfort during their sex scene, hyping up her event and working for free) than any of the past men she’s dated over the seasons. When Molly’s miserable, everybody’s got to join her.
But Issa may not be putting up with Molly for much longer.
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“Honestly, I don’t fuck with Molly anymore,” Issa tells someone (hopefully Condola) over the phone in the opening scene before rewinding the timeline to Issa’s mixer that happens four months earlier.
Issa in HBO’s “Insecure.” (Photo: HBO)
But it’s the episode’s final scene that marks the beginning of the end of Issa and Molly.
The mixer is done and they’re the last two remaining, cleaning up the trash from the courtyard. Molly dumps one garbage bag into a can and Issa dumps two. “You got it?” Molly asks. “Yeah, I got it,” Issa answers. There’s no big blow-up between them like there was after the season one fundraiser — just Issa’s subtle, I don’t need you.
Still, Issa’s question lingers: What if you met an amazing woman who happens to be dating your ex; would you try to make it work or walk away?
Issa and Condola in HBO’s “Insecure.” (Photo: HBO)
It’s a reasonable question about a potential emotional landmine of a relationship. It also illuminates a difficult reality. Women who date men are socialized to forgive and try to work through problems with all manner of men. Hell, Issa put up with Lawrence’s couch-surfing, unemployed, birthday-forgetting, passive-aggressive foolishness for an actual half a decade.
But women friends don’t hold the same weight as hetero-romantic relationships in society. They seem much easier to discard when the road gets bumpy, as a result.
Though Molly and Issa have survived a friend break-up before, time will tell if Issa’s friendships with both Molly and Condola will stand the test of time or be put out on the curb.
