"Insecure" Review - Season 4, Episode 1

Molly Loves Issa

“Honestly, I don’t fuck with Molly anymore.”

Season 4 of “Insecure” is back and it starts off showcasing, once again, just how complex day-to-day relationships can be. The series can be a lot of things. A show about Black millennials, a show about girlfriends, a show about dating, a show about career choices, haves and have-nots, all of that. It’s like that meme about trying to have time to do everything you want to do just trying to keep it all together.

Mostly, however, in my opinion, it’s about love.

More specifically? About Molly and Issa’s love because it’s there and it’s real. As real as any dysfunctional love you’ve ever witnessed is.

And Molly is a master of dysfunctional love with men, so why is anyone surprised that her love with Issa is more, if not all, of the same?

So I have read a lot of people say everything from Molly being jealous of Issa to Molly needing Issa to be broken down so that Molly can feel good about herself and that makes me cringe because I think Molly’s issues have nothing to do with Issa and everything to do with the fact that Molly is insecure as hell.

Molly’s shit with men is toxic as fuck and she acknowledges this. In fact, the only person who has EVER been able to tell her something about men that she will listen to is Issa. She might not acknowledge it initially, but we see her LISTENING. We see her seeking validation from Issa regarding her feelings and if she’s right or wrong when it comes to men. Issa is her touchstone. Her talisman if you will and, in her way, she believes she is the only person who can save Issa from Issa’ing and, because of their history, she hasn’t recognized yet that Issa is growing and changing. FINALLY.

Issa knows that Condola is the version of woman that Issa is striving to be. She knows her shortcomings and this thing with Lawrence has, once again, made her feel that she isn’t good enough. Molly KEEPS telling her she is but is focused on her own painful stuff she’s trying to pretend isn’t painful and she doesn’t have what it takes to thoughtfully consider Issa’s DEEP, deep ish.

And hey…neither of them have initials behind their names and can’t offer therapy to the other.

But eh…we saw it coming.

We all felt Issa wasn’t emotionally mature enough to handle it. We ALL worried.

When Condola told Lawrence, he didn’t think Condola should continue working with Issa at first either and yet, the masses aren't giving him crap about his immediate reaction. It was only after he took a breath and considered that Issa needed help that he changed his tune. Issa didn't think so either, hence the awkwardness and asking Kelli for her opinion regarding. It was weird because eh…Issa still has unresolved SOMETHING regarding her breakup with Lawrence. I don’t know if she still loves him but she’s still connected and she still wants things to have been different between them you know? So there is that.

I’ve had more than a few conversations about the triggering comment Molly made to Issa after the mixer was over and she’d let Issa know she knew about Condola and Lawrence. Molly said, “It’s just that…you know your life doesn’t have to be this messy, right? Sometimes I think you like that shit.”

And Issa did that thing with her face that she does when she has just absorbed something hurtful that she isn’t ready to admit hurt her. Her buffer face. The awkward Black girl face we first fell in love with. The face Molly has seen more than anybody I’m sure.

Molly and Issa have experience with each other and there are place cards for where each fit in the other’s life. Molly shows up pushing a hot Audi whip dressed in matching pricey yoga wear to spend Sunday self-caring with the only person she can count on and Issa is there waiting on her dressed in random t-shirt with shorts and derailing the process from the onset by whipping out the weed and then burning her mat with said weed. Nothing that surprises Molly. It’s easy. She moves past each of Issa’s awkward moments with ease, as she is a pro at maneuvering within them. Issa, the classic late bloomer, is growing. Not in the “normal” time frame of college, graduate school to career, but in other ways. In the bobbing and weaving of a creative. Still broke, still trying to figure it out, but showing up. Yes, showing up in a wardrobe she’s faking, but moving forward. Slowly. And there is a hiccup, per the norm.

Fucking Lawrence.

All of Issa’s friends and family are helping her out. Bartending, DJ’ing, talking up the project to investors when she was falling short, helping to clean up, hyping up the crowd, etc.

ISSA IS LOVED.

This is a love story.

I have someone that I love big time but is well known to be a fug up. Whenever they call me with something I automatically think to myself…”Aw lawd…here they come with the bullshit” before they have even uttered word one. Why? Historically they have made poor choices, which end up creating mess, drama and just a hectic existence. I watch it all unfold and, even as I wish they’d make better choices based on what they have experienced, 95% of the time, they still on dumb shit.

And the dumb shit ends up blowing up.

And I just wish that they’d stop doing dumb shit and had a lovely, cushioned existence filled with joy and happiness. Because I love them.

But eh…I KNOW them so I’m never surprised.

Molly and Issa won’t ever be as healthy as they can be until one or both of them have someone else in their life to bounce the OTHER stuff off. Neither of them is healthy enough to be everything to the other one.

That is a Molly AND Issa problem. Issa’s awkward azz is not blameless and Molly isn’t an evil bitch.

Kelly needs her own show.

Just my half a cent.