The one time Issa and Lawrence got closure on the love they lost was the Season 2 finale of Insecure, which aired in 2017. At that point, Issa was squandering her potential, and Lawrence was in professional limbo, on the rebound from Issa’s cheating. Standing in the apartment Issa has since left, Lawrence apologized, saying, “I’m sorry for not being who you expected me to be. Who I expected me to be.” Sunday night’s episode, the eighth of Season 4, was like part two of that conversation, as well as a reminder that these two are adorable.
After crossing paths for most of the season, Issa and Lawrence finally get to sit for a quiet dinner postmortem about where they went wrong. All the unanswered questions get asked. Why Daniel? What made Issa unhappy? They’ve had lots of time and space to unfuck themselves into perspective. Season-4-Lawrence is (was) in a relationship with a new partner, Condola, and Season-4-Issa is finally feeding the creative/entrepreneurial spirit she’s had buried all along, though at the expense of her friendship with Molly.
Before Sunday night’s episode aired, Issa Rae and Natasha Rothwell, who wrote the script, mentioned the difficulty of promoting a show in the middle of national protests and hoped it could at least “provide some solace to anyone who’s hurting or needs a laugh.” Insecure is already built around highly relatable storylines meant to agitate Twitter, but as the show evolves its storytelling past surface challenges for its characters, Season 4—which is turning out to be the best—feels particularly close to the heart. Here’s a brief list of things this season has probably made you think about very intensely and triggering-ly:
1. A Friendship Breakup
Every show needs a villain, and sometimes that villain is your friend. This season’s tragedy is, of course, Molly and Issa’s breakup, which came to a head in Episode 5 when their passive aggression turned into aggression at Issa’s block party.
While both Molly and Issa have failed at communicating the ways in which they’re growing apart as people, it’s the dreaded Molly who has manifest as that friend everyone wants to do better but shan’t. “Damn, Molly.” “Seriously, Molly?” “Here comes Molly…” Their uncoupling has likely brought up issues of past friendship breakups for you.
2. Eating at places
Every time anyone meets somewhere for anything to eat or drink or have fun, it’s a reminder that we can’t, which feels bad.
3. Parental issues
Molly is still hung up on discovering her dad’s infidelity, perhaps not extending the same forgiveness her mom has already granted to him. In a car scene after a family gathering, Molly’s brother delivers a line of perspective in prose, telling her, “Dads are niggas, too,” a reminder of the point in life when people realize parents happen to be people.
4. Friends with kids
You know that pregnant friend who’s pregnant for so long and then has the kid.
5. All the Exes in Texts
Based on last night’s episode, it looks like Lawrence thinks he can come back into Issa’s life and just be cute! A meeting turns into a nice dinner and an honest conversation about their mistakes, which leads to a fun night out and probably the best sex they’ve had together because their connection is deep. And while it feels like any potential reconciliation is doomed, at least they’ve grown and they know what happiness looks like for themselves. They’re funny, they’re cute, and it’s like a rom-com vignette pushing us toward the inevitably stressful season finale I crave.