Hola! Here we are, back at it again! This weekend was exactly what I needed: beautiful weather, semi-productive activities, and lots of back porch relaxin’ and couch potato sittin’ – watching loads of TV. And that includes my Sunday night faves: “Divorce” and “Insecure” on HBO.
I usually talk “Divorce” first, simply because it comes on before “Insecure”, but I’m all about mixing things up lately. So, “Insecure” it is.
At the beginning of the episode, Issa is trying to spice things up with her boyfriend by hopping into the shower with him, but it naturally ends poorly. Molly has another subpar date, and we’re off to the races.
At work, Issa gets an unexpected visit from Daniel (the guy from Facebook a few episodes back). He tells her he doesn’t want things to be awkward between them, and she tells him she’s back with her boyfriend. After that, he’s pretty much done with the conversation.
Issa calls Molly to give her the scoop, and Issa blames this entire scenario on the typical law: as soon as things are looking up, an ex finds a reason to pop back into her life. At the end of the call, Molly admits she may not be able to make it to Issa’s work for “Career Day”.
Lawrence arrives at Best Buy for his first day on the job. While he’s told he’s doing a good job in the computer section, he’s asked to cover the washer/dryer section. He doesn’t seem too pleased with this idea, but goes anyway.
Back at work, Issa is helping plan Career Day, and finally starts to bond with one of her female coworkers. They bond over the frustrations of their job, and realize they still have slots to fill at Career Day. Her coworker suggests Daniel – since he works in music. Issa hesitates, but texts him anyway.
Molly is on another date that she seems to be blowing off, although he seems actually decent. They are at a jazz club and he invites her to dance, which makes for a cute scene.
Lawrence meets his old fling for lunch; the one he saw at the bank. It seems innocent although she’s a little flirty. He has his paperwork from Best Buy and he expresses his concern over the fact that it may not be a temporary job like he originally thought. She tells him to keep up his side project: the app.
At Career Day, Daniel shows up with a sound board and easily impresses all the kids. He lays a beat and invites the kids to freestyle, and one kid embarrasses himself. Daniel tells the kids Issa can spit. Of course, none of them believe her, and he says “Yeah, she actually inspired me”, and all the kids whooooo oohhhh!
She walks him outside, and I think there is this weird moment where she was impressed by him. Afterall, he’s got a great job that’s cool, and he was good with her kids. Later, she has a fantasy about Daniel with his shirt off (looking FINE) and Ty Dolla Sign – random, yes. And this just drives home the fact that Issa doesn’t seem to be attracted to Lawrence anymore.
Molly arrives and has lots of questions for Issa: why was Daniel there? Why didn’t she ask her boyfriend to come? And as Issa is leaving school, the kids have found a video of her now-infamous open mic night. She’s toooooast – and the episode is over.
I am still loving this show! I’d venture to say it’s the best thing on TV right now – and there’s even a podcast that recaps it call, called “InsecuriTEA”. Definitely worth a listen.
After last week’s episode, where Francis admitted to sleeping with her side-piece at least “32 times”, her and Robert are going through with the divorce. The episode opens with their first appointment at mediation, and despite being able to agree on that, it’s about the only thing they agree on.
Next step? Telling their kids they’re getting a divorce. Yikes.
Francis also hasn’t told anyone at work, until she’s forced to when she needs her pay stubs from the payroll department. She has an awkward breakdown in front of a random employee, and even admits to her affair. Awwwwkwaaard.
Francis and Robert take their kids out for ice cream to tell them about the divorce. But it ends up in an argument over how expensive the sundaes are – and the conversation never happens.
After missing a call from “J”, her former lover, Francis meets with him and tells him she no longer wants to see him and she doesn’t want them to hurt each other any longer. He agrees, and asks Francis if she will ask her husband to stop calling him.
J then shows Francis all of the texts, missed calls, pictures, and even videos Robert has sent him – they are threatening, and awkwardly hilarious.
Back at mediation, Robert is late so nothing can really get done… and the episode is over.
I’m going to be honest here – this show needs to pick it up. At this point, we (the viewers) have no clue why Robert and Francis got together in the first place. Frankly, they aren’t very likable people – and hey, there are characters that we shouldn’t like, i.e. Dexter, Nurse Jackie, etc. – but we find reasons to root for them.
And right now, there are no stakes; no reasons for us to cheer for Francis and Robert to stay together. What would save this season? A flashback episode that shows us some incredible backstory on how/why they got together – and flash forward to current time, and something arises (a problem) that requires them to stay together in order to fix it.
Otherwise, we’re going to be watching six more episodes of mediocre bickering. It’s getting old.
The Bitter Lemon 