‘Insecure’ recap: Issa and Condola’s ‘Sisters Before Misters’ energy

OPINION: Brooke Obie dissects the unraveling of Issa and Molly's friendship as Issa's budding friendship with Condola blossoms

Brooke Obie

Apr 20, 2020

Issa and Condola in season 4 of HBO's "Insecure." (Photo: HBO)

It’s three months before Issa’s block party, and Molly is busy getting her back blown out proper by Asian Bae. That means she didn’t blow it with him after she acted a passive-aggressive fool over him still seeing other people in last week’s episode.

She’s trying really hard not to be herself and sabotage this relationship, but she’s obviously frustrated with him for being closed off emotionally with her. They can’t get to the next level if they’re just having dinner and sex, as fun as that may be.

Meanwhile, Issa is giving Condola (and therefore the viewers) a tour of historic Market Street in Inglewood. Once a thriving shopping district, Market Street is IRL filled with empty storefronts with For Lease signs in the window — and that’s pre-COVID-19.

Because series creator and star, Issa Rae, is always putting on for Black-owned businesses and doing her part to fight gentrification in Inglewood — she even features her own coffee shop chain Hilltop on the show — I’m certain she wanted her character Issa Dee to highlight Market Street as a way to support Black folks in the city.

It’s extra sad to think of what this promotion and a real-life Block Party on Market Street could have done to revitalize and support local, Black-owned businesses without the ‘Rona ruining everything.

Besides inspiring viewers to Google Market Street (and hopefully patronize dope stores that are selling online right now, like my favorite Ankara dress spot Coquette Kouture) this scene establishes a very important sister code between Issa and Condola.

“I’m not about to let someone who puts mayonnaise on his French fries make things weird,” Issa tells Condola when the subject of Lawrence, Issa’s ex and Condola’s current bae, comes up.

Issa and Condola work well together, they like each other, and Lawrence doesn’t have the range to make them stop being friends. They agree to the code and it’s beautiful to see. More of this “Sisters Before Misters” energy in the world, please!

But of course, Condola lets it slip to Lawrence that she and Issa were talking about him and now he’s all in his feelings. He vents about it to his boys, giving the hilarious Chad (Neil Brown Jr.) another opportunity to read his friend for his terrible life choices. Lawrence met Condola at the baby shower of friends he shares with Issa. Of course, the odds for some mess would be high.

“I tried to tell you about peeing in the pool you swim in,” Chad says, but Lawrence wasn’t listening. Now look at him.

Lawrence isn’t the only one pissy about Issa and Condola’s budding friendship. Molly is high-key jealous of Condola and Issa’s budding friendship. Issa is either not picking up Molly’s cues or is willfully ignoring them in favor of spending more time with Condola. Issa and Condola have a “good vibes only” policy that has been working for them organically, and we all know by now, good vibes is not Molly’s M.O.

A short while later, it’s Halloween and perpetual scene-stealer Kelli (Natasha Rothwell) shows up dressed in pink pleather and a blonde sculpted wig as Nisi from B.A.P.S. and all I can think about is how magical it would be if Kelli got the screen time she deserves.

Honestly, Condola is a more developed character than long-term character Kelly, and I can’t help but think of how much more Kelly we could be getting if Lawrence had been dropped off in the land of forgotten ex-boyfriends where he belongs.

But alas, our Kelly time is short-lived, and we’re back to watching Lawrence maturely asking Issa to lay off conversing with Condola about him so that Condola can get to know him at his own pace. It’s a fair request, but, whatever, Lawrence.

Even though he had Issa p-poppin on a handstand, TSA Bae gets kicked to the curb. He lost the condom he was wearing inside of her and she had to fix the situation herself using a handheld mirror and a dose of Plan B. The used condom and splooge fall out on the handheld mirror, and if this is lowkey payback for the viewers who complained about not seeing condoms used on the show in season one: well done.

The final scene reveals another crack in Issa and Molly’s friendship. The two take a hike together for their self-care Sundays ritual, uphill climb paralleling how laborious maintaining their relationship has become. When Molly tells Issa her valid concerns about Asian Bae shutting down every time the conversation gets real, Issa dismisses Molly as just not wanting to be happy.

On the one hand, they’ve been dating less than a month and Molly does have a history of doing the most; but on the other, Asian Bae is clearly clamming up when she asks him for the simplest details about his life.

When he calls to apologize to Molly in the middle of her hike with Issa, Molly doesn’t even bother to gloat to Issa about being right or getting what she wanted. She lies and says it was a work call, as the two look out over the city from the top of a hill, the distance between them as wide as their panoramic view.

Brooke Obie is an award-winning journalist and the author of the Black revolution novel Book of Addis: Cradled Embers.