Insecure (TV Program)

By the end, Issa and her friends had learned how to embrace the unexpected.Season 5, Episode 10: ‘Everything Gonna Be, Okay?!’Dreams can come true, even if they don’t look as tidy as we envisioned them. The things that haunt you might be the things you need to explore. In the final episode of the final season of “Insecure,” we see this happen in the lives of the characters we have come to love.We start this episode where we left off in the last. Issa is on her way home with Nathan, after he almost fought Lawrence at Tiffany’s going away party. When he drops Issa off, he breaks up with her.“I was wrong — this ain’t good for me,” he tells Issa, his eyes teary. “I gotta take a step back.”He chooses his sanity over the toxicity of Issa’s messiness. It’s important to note that Nathan is looking after himself: He realizes that he is constantly triggered by Issa and he needs to check in with himself. Issa’s open-ended relationship with Lawrence seems to spill all over the place and he does not want to be a part of that. Issa seems to take the breakup in stride and goes home. She doesn’t fight it.The next day Molly wakes her with food and love. She wants to make sure her friend is OK, but she does not know that Nathan has already broken up with her. In the bathroom, Issa gets dragged by her reflection: “You’re down bad. I don’t know where you go from here. You were tripping about all these decisions and choices, just to end up here.”“I just want to fast forward to the part of my life where everything is OK,” Issa tells her reflection.That is exactly what happens next, sort of. We fast forward to Molly’s birthday. Her mother, siblings, Taurean and Taurean’s parents are at her place to celebrate her. It is the last time Molly will celebrate a birthday with her mother, but she does not know it yet. Tiffany is in town from Denver, and Kelli has a tall hunk by her side named Desmond. The girls all seemed to have moved on in life, but not Issa. She is contemplating leaving Los Angeles. Molly encourages Issa to consider her personal growth.Molly seems to have found her tribe, her community, but so has Issa. We fast forward again to Issa’s birthday, thrown at Crenshawn headquarters, which lets us know that she chose to collaborate with him instead of going to MBW. In lieu of gifts, her assistant asked people to donate to The Blocc, and her friends donated $5,000. It is clear that Issa’s community supports her. At the party, Nathan shows up, and it is the first time they are seeing each other since his fight with Lawrence. He explains his behavior and donates some money to her in person. They iron out their wrinkles. It is nice to see them accept that they are not a good fit and walk away from each other in peace and with love.This frees Issa up. Another montage of aerial shots of Los Angeles moves us forward in time again, and the girls are finally in Denver visiting Tiffany for her birthday. Tiffany hates Denver but she is also working on figuring it out. At Tiffany’s, Lawrence is haunting Issa again.“You know what I always wondered, what would you have said to Lawrence if Nathan hadn’t interrupted?” Molly asked Issa.“It’s too late, anyway!” Issa responds.“Girl it’s not too late if that’s what you really want,” Molly tells her.It is the voice in Issa’s head that tells her she can’t do the things she wants to do, that holds her back. She knows how she feels about Lawrence, yet she ignores it to be safe, to fit in, to not be out of pocket. Molly reminds her she can just do her thing.“Sometimes it’s not that hard,” Molly says.Between Molly’s mother passing away and Issa learning that Kelli is pregnant, after telling everyone that she doesn’t want to have children, something shifted in Issa. That voice became smaller. The urgency of the first few episodes seems to have tripled for Issa, who is watching her peers grow, personally and professionally.That is how Issa ended up with Lawrence by the end of “Insecure.” She let go of the ideas that she had of herself and the expectations she thought her friends had for her. It was all in Issa’s head. That is where her reflection comes in: She was always talking to the mirror because her thinking was internal. In the real world, there were no expectations.What I didn’t expect in the final episode was a wedding. Even though Molly married Taurean — and I am so happy for her — the wedding seemed like more of a celebration between Issa and Molly, the true soul-mates on the show. We see Molly walk out of a church with Taurean and hit the dance floor, but it isn’t until Issa is helping her out of her dress that we see a ceremony of sorts. Issa is unwraps the corset of Molly’s dress, tells her that she is happy for her and we get to see their relationship become even more layered.“There goes my girl,” Issa tells Lawrence at the wedding while staring at Molly.In this episode, at Issa’s birthday party, before she tries to kick it to a very handsome man, Kelli yells out:“She woke up today and chose confidence!”May we all learn from Kelli, Issa, Tiffany and Molly, who each came to realize, through many tough trials and errors, that opening yourself up to the unexpected is a form of strength. Resisting such matters, whether it is a boyfriend that had a child during a breakup, a move to a place outside of what you know, changing your mind about wanting children or finally letting your guard down, does not lead to a full life — we must remain open as people to move forward. May we all leave our insecurities behind and choose confidence. More

In the penultimate episode of the series, several characters let out what they have been holding inside.Season 5, Episode 9: ‘Out, Okay!?’Almost everyone is carrying around some kind of emotional burden. Most of us have learned to compartmentalize, if only to move forward. What happens when people let go and take a chance? When you tell the person you love how you feel? When you decide to leave everything behind for a chance at something different? Life is what happens.In “Out, Okay!?,” the penultimate episode of “Insecure,” several characters let out what they have been holding inside. Lawrence confesses that he loves Issa. Tiffany says goodbye to her friends in Los Angeles to start a new journey with her family in Colorado. Molly and Taurean cross the line from work friends and casual hookups to something else.While everyone is making big moves, Issa is still pretty grounded. She has not yet decided if she is going to take MBW’s offer or take her chances with Crenshawn. She is looking at apartments with Nathan but has not signed a lease yet. She seems to be in a limbo of her own making. They’re leaving all the resolution for the final episode, and it is enticing.We know that she still has some type of feelings for Lawrence, because she has not been able to stop thinking about him since she learned that he moved back to Los Angeles. We know that she wanted to reach out for closure until Molly stopped her.At Tiffany and Derek’s goodbye party, Nathan and Lawrence meet for the first time. There is obvious tension. The two go back and forth over whether Los Angeles or Houston has better barbecue. It is a petty argument that is more about ego. It is Lawrence sticking his chest out to the man Issa is planning to move in with.Lawrence did not go to the party alone — he showed up with Elijah and Condola. When Condola heads to the kitchen to grab a bottle for Elijah, she bumps into Molly, Kelly, Tiffany and, potentially most awkward, Issa. But the girls are cordial: Issa congratulates Condola on Elijah and Condola congratulates her on her latest community walk. Lawrence and Condola had started seeming like a blended family but when they arrived at the party, Condola noticed Lawrence looking at Issa with his swoon eyes on. She seemed disappointed, so I’m not calling Condola, Lawrence and Elijah the Smiths just yet.Molly and Taurean take edibles without telling anyone. (Molly eventually confesses to the girls.) It seems to be what the doctor ordered — I don’t see how they would have dropped their guard with one another otherwise. When they do, it’s beautiful. Taurean softens; Molly becomes a bit goofy and honest. After bingeing the hors d’oeuvres in secret, they find themselves inside a pantry.“A part of me is kind of worried how much fun I am having with you,” she tells him. “This is easy and feels real natural, and that scares me.”“Why?” Taurean asks.“Because at some point when people get close, I mess things up,” she answers earnestly.“With me, it’s the opposite,” he reassures her. “I hated you at first, but now I’m starting to like you. I’m not going to get tired of you, Molly,” Then he kisses her and they hook up.I’m not mad at this for Molly — Taurean did send her wine and Postmates after a very hard day, which is the modern equivalent of a sonnet and flowers. They might get some trouble from their colleagues, but I think they can make it work if Molly can find a way to let herself be loved.At the end of the party, things finally come to a head between Lawrence and Nathan, who get into a sort of fisticuffs after Nathan finds Lawrence professing his love for Issa. Issa repeatedly asks Lawrence to maybe talk to her another time but Lawrence can’t contain himself. He lets it all out.“When you ended things, I understood,” he tells her. “But things are different now; I’m different now. I would hate to leave here tonight knowing that I didn’t say something that I should have, like I didn’t fight hard enough for you.”“I don’t know that fighting will even matter,” she replies.After Taurean breaks up Lawrence and Nathan’s confrontation, Nathan yells at Issa. She reaches for his arm and he pulls away from her, asking her to give him a minute to cool down. It did not feel right that he yelled at her, regardless of how hotheaded he may have been. It felt like in that moment, she stopped being the woman he loved; she too was the opposition.Here’s hoping Issa stops playing the middle of the road soon. More

This week, Issa is thriving personally and professionally, but a series of dreams (or nightmares) injects uncertainty into her situation.Season 5, Episode 8, ‘Choices, Okay!?’Let’s talk about dreams, a popular subject of poems, songs, books and plays. In life, they can give us something to strive for; in drama, they’re a useful way to illustrate a character’s hopes and fears.In this episode, Issa has a series of dreams — or possibly nightmares — and they all come up Lawrence. “Choices, Okay!?” is more about the dreams that Issa has not chased down and brought to life than about the ones that she has managed to reach.This episode starts with Issa and Nathan splayed around Issa’s loved-in bedroom. Issa is thinking about squirrels until she remembers that her friend Tiffany might be moving away. She does a lot of daydreaming in this episode. After a quip or two, Nathan gets up and heads to the bathroom to take what appears to be medication, a welcome sign that he is staying dedicated to his health and well-being.The couple is clearly getting along — it seems Nathan was able to show up for Issa in the way she wanted. She’s wearing his T-shirt around her house and he says he loves making her coffee, and then he asks Issa if they should move in together.“Wow, do you think we’re ready for that?” she replies, looking somewhat stunned.“I don’t know, maybe,” he responds with a shrug. “It will save us some money.”Then they put a pin in the conversation and move on.Initially, Issa’s professional life appears to be blossoming along with her romantic one. In a dreamlike sequence, she is offered what seems like a high number to partner with MBW. She puts on a show at the Miracle Theater in Los Angeles and expertly walks her sponsors through the process — she is in charge, she knows her talking points and has her bases covered and then some. Then it appears we move forward in the timeline and she is on a panel being interviewed by Elaine Welteroth; it looks like our girl has professionally leveled up.Suddenly, she’s wearing a fly suit in first-class, sitting next to Ty Dollar $ign, who is on his way to Los Angeles to work with Crenshawn. Then Issa arrives at home. Nathan is at the house and the house is beautiful, that’s when I knew she was daydreaming. It might be when she figured it out, too — she kind of snaps out of it and asks Nathan when they moved to that apartment.At this point, the episode dedicated some time to Kelli, who was helping Molly’s parents with their estate planning, so I want to do the same. What would “Insecure” be without her? She is always on time, unabashed, constantly pushing the girls to take better care of themselves. She will DM Daniel Kaluuya and then say he DM’d her first, because why not? She is like a human confetti popper of joy and hilarious rage. (This week she told Issa’s brother, Ahmal, that she was going to write a TV show about him just so she could kill him off.) When she is helping Molly’s parents, she eases the tension with her on-point witticism and jokes. We all need a Kelli.Issa’s second daydream of the episode was both more aspirational and more fraught. In this one, she partners up with Crenshawn, who apologizes for his behavior on social media, and opens up two locations with him. She is known and loved in the community and plays spades with the ice cream man on Sundays. (Glad to hear that she finally learned how.) Ty Dollar $ign partners up with MBW instead, and promotes water on bus ads.Issa, on the other hand, receives the key to Inglewood from Tyra Banks — we all want to receive something from Tyra after watching her pass out headshots on “America’s Next Top Model” for years, I get it — and has a day named after her. At the end of this dream, she goes home and Nathan walks out to greet her. But then when he walks into a different room, Lawrence is who comes back out.“I’m proud of you,” he says to her. “You had a lot of options but you made a choice that made you happy, and now you’re being rewarded for it.”He goes in for a kiss and Issa screams.Issa has it bad — even when she’s daydreaming about what her life could become, Lawrence is still in play. Toward the end of the episode, she’s having dinner with Nathan at her place and he goes in the next room. When he says that he wants her to be happy, Issa hears Lawrence’s voice and braces herself for him to walk out of the room, but Nathan walks out instead. Did she look a little disappointed?In Issa’s real life, Nathan is her boyfriend and that’s who is in her house. Her dreams are turning into nightmares; is that what happens to dreams deferred? Will Issa try to turn her dream — ending up with Lawrence, it seems — into reality, no matter how misguided that move might be? Or will her actual reality be enough for her? More

For Issa and the girls, a day of relaxation turns into a night of introspection.Season 5, Episode 7, ‘Chillin’, Okay?!’There is something about spending an entire day with your girls, in the house. Things come out, love is passed around, laughter is shared and there is a warmth that comes from all of that friction.“Chillin’, Okay?!” starts at Issa’s apartment, where Molly, Kelli and Tiffany have met up to start a day of relaxation for Molly, who has been stressed because of her mother’s health crisis. They had planned to meet at the house and then head to a spa, but when a pipe bursts at the spa, they are forced to stay home until dinner.Disappointed, the girls start drinking and forget about the spa. Tiffany starts to play “Last Night,” by Diddy and Keyshia Cole, Molly starts to dance and pretends her wine bottle is a microphone. Issa suggests they play Questions in a Hat, where anonymous questions are thrown in a hat and randomly selected by players, but Kelli is skeptical. “You know the power it has,” she says sinisterly.Questions in a Hat is less a game than an icebreaker exercise, designed to make the mind feel comfortable while exposing vulnerabilities. Even though the girls are friends and have become closer throughout“Insecure,” there are still things that need to be tugged out of them, like when Molly admits to having never seen “Love Jones” (guilty!) even though she bonded with Issa over the movie. Or when Tiffany admits to thinking about her husband when she masturbates.When deeper questions start to come up, Issa explains that she and Nathan are not in a good place. The girls listen and check Issa. That is what sisterhood is for: To let you know that yes, maybe you are inconsistent and maybe your boo is not wrong. The ladies are perfect at it — funny, calm and just harsh enough.Issa says she is willing to start over, to let go of what she has with Nathan, but no one believes her — not her girls and not the viewers. She also admits to feeling bad because Nathan has not returned her “I love you.”Molly then draws the “If you could have one do-over, what would it be?” question.Issa has been thinking about her own do-over since she noticed that Lawrence moved back to Los Angeles. She has been considering reaching out to him for closure, she says, which she hadn’t shared with her friends.“I just wish I figured out what I wanted to do sooner,” she responds to Molly’s question.Later on, while Issa’s friends are ranking her lovers — Daniel for the win — she tells the girls that she saw Lawrence, Condola and Elijah at the hospital. Condola and Lawrence seemed like they were doing well, so Issa assumed they had rekindled their affair. But Kelli lets her know that things were not great with them at Tiffany’s child’s birthday party.“Really?” Issa responds, as if she were trapped in a hot car and a window had just magically opened. She tries to make the case for how she feels to her friends.“You made the smart choice,” Molly reassures her.“Sometimes it’s not about making the smart choice — it just has to make sense to you,” Tiffany says.Issa’s eyes light up. Tiffany’s comment validates her feelings — she’s looking for any reason to run back to who she knows and what feels safe. Things are shaky with Nathan and that instability can be exhausting. Sometimes you just need to be loved and supported.After the girls decide to stay in for the night, they cute up the balcony with rugs and throws and pass libations around. When Dro, the messiest of all “Insecure” men, calls Molly, Issa sees it as an excuse to call Lawrence, though she has no plan for what to say. Molly snatches her phone and hangs up.“Girl, you know I love you right?” she asks, and then reminds Issa about the earlier discussion of her inconsistency. “You’re doing it — like how is this going to help?”While Issa was thinking about backsliding toward Lawrence, the man himself was trying to repair his relationship with Condola. Issa has not realized — or is choosing not to consider — that Lawrence has a world of his own to take care of right now. A baby doesn’t care about Issa’s need for closure or even what Lawrence wants at all. It isn’t like before; starting over for Issa now means leaving safety totems like Lawrence behind.The next morning, Nathan calls and tells her that he loves her and that he knows he can be avoidant and childish. (I cannot confirm that calls like this happen in real life.) He promises to do better and she hangs up with a smile on her face. Then Lawrence returns her call from the night before. She does not pick up because she does not need a security blanket anymore.While there’s still part of me that secretly would like to see Issa and Lawrence end up together in the series finale, what I really want is for Issa to choose herself and the things she wants out of love, not desperation. I want her to chill, OK? More

As Molly deals with a family emergency, Issa finds a new relationship moving faster than she planned.Season 5, Episode 5: ‘Surviving, Okay?!’We all have a friend who is obsessed with control. They are the ones who ask who is invited to a party before agreeing to attend. They make all the reservations. In “Insecure,” that friend is Molly.Molly needs to know who, what, where and why before she even picks out an outfit. She has gotten better about this as the show has progressed, but this week the control freak returns. This episode, which was directed by Kerry Washington, starts out near the end of a tryst, when suddenly Molly’s phone gets a flurry of incoming messages. Her mother, Carol, has been hospitalized.Yes, Molly showed up to the hospital in her freakum dress, but in her defense, she left in a rush. After the doctor first confuses Carol with another, much older Black woman, the family finally finds her. It was only slightly comical — there are plenty of real-life reports that suggest that doctors give less consideration to Black patients.Molly’s mother has had a stroke and is unresponsive. It has caught Molly, Ms. In Control, off guard. Throughout the episode, the Carter family waits to see how much the stroke has affected Carol. Molly doesn’t leave the hospital, and soon Issa stops by to offer support and help.Issa had just woken up in Nathan’s bed, to a cup of coffee, when she got the news about Carol. She asks Nathan to take her to the hospital, where she offers to bring Molly a more appropriate outfit. In the meantime, she gives Molly the clothes off her back so that she can be more comfortable while tending to her family — that kind of sisterhood and care is beautiful to see onscreen. (Issa is also a vision in that dress.)After Molly and Issa exchange clothes, they look at themselves together in the mirror. It is briefly as if each has become the other — Issa in the party dress and Molly in the killer sweatshirt and jeans. It’s nice to see the relationship reach this level of quiet, shared love, where a nod and a hug communicates more than words can.At the hospital, Molly, her brothers, Curtis and Jerome, and her father, David, are all shocked to see their matriarch in such bad shape. David is incapable of even speaking to the nurse but Molly picks up the ball, asking the nurse to keep her updated.Before this emergency hospitalization, Molly’s parents had omitted key details about her mother’s health, including the fact that Carol had had a stroke before. Molly is shocked and her sense of control takes another hit — she didn’t even know what all was going on with her own parents.Meanwhile, Issa has her own, less profound problems: She loses Molly’s dog, Flavor Flav, during a walk. She had been distracted by Nathan, who had just met her mother over FaceTime, when the dog got loose. They set out to find him with a bizarre lack of urgency: They were basically just kicking it and hoping Flav would come back to them, which I found strange. But eventually he did.After Issa essentially hangs up on her mother, who was doing the most, she explains to Nathan that it is OK if he thinks it’s too soon for them to be meeting one another’s parents. But Nathan says no, with that darling smile. Their bond is deepening and soon Issa is learning more about Nathan’s family, though as is often the case with his past, it’s pretty dark. (His father sounds at least somewhat abusive.)Almost as soon as they stop looking for Flav and take a break on a bench, he finds them on his own. (In Los Angeles?!) Nathan sees an opportunity for a metaphor.“Smarter than you gave him credit for,” he says to Issa, who doubted the dog would make it back. But really he is talking about himself.“I honestly could not have done today without you. You’re so patient with me, that’s why I love you,” Issa says to Nathan, almost accidentally. It’s another unplanned step forward in their relationship and again Nathan responds favorably, this time with a warm kiss.After returning Flavor Flav, Issa heads back to the hospital, where Molly had just been informed that her mother will likely be at least partially paralyzed by the stroke. Though the doctor offers to inform the family, Molly volunteers to do it herself. It seemed like an effort to recover some semblance of the control she is used to having.Talking to Issa, Molly beats herself up, as if allowing herself to have a good time was somehow linked to her mother’s affliction.“I was hooking up with some random guy when my mom was busy having a stroke,” she says.“All of this stuff is out of our control anyway,” Issa replies.The truth of Issa’s own words is almost immediately demonstrated to her, when she unexpectedly glimpses Lawrence with his new family. Heading out for coffee, Issa sees him with Condola and Elijah — they are at the hospital, presumably for a pediatric appointment. Issa looks at the baby’s face and then at Lawrence’s. It’s the image of a life she once was ready to have, but one that is distant from who she is today.Lawrence looks up and they lock eyes. (Condola does not notice.) Then Issa slips down the hall and Lawrence heads into his appointment. They both saw what could have been and had to walk past it, Lawrence with disappointment on his face.Issa stops when she gets out of view, frozen by what she has seen until the episode cuts to black. I hope that she is strong enough to look at what could have been and walk toward what is. More

This season, Issa has undergone plenty of personal evolution, but some people still bring out her old self-doubt.Season 3 Episode 4: ‘Faulty, Okay?!’Nathan, Nathan, Nathan. There’s a lot we still don’t know about Nathan but we know that Issa likes him, or at least likes to keep him around. This week, the former and possibly future couple move past their emotional mix-up in the bedroom, from this season’s second episode, and head into new territory in more ways than one.The episode starts at the beach, where Nathan is celebrating his barbershop with his friends. When Issa shows up, with Molly and Kelli, she’s desperate to see if Nathan will be as warm with her as he was before she “cried in his mouth,” as she put it. It’s been a week and even though they have texted, the matter was not discussed.As usual, Issa gets awkward when she is insecure. Watching her talk to Nathan is like hearing nails scratch a chalkboard — it’s beyond cringey. She asks about the weather and talks out of turn. Everything comes out of her mouth except how she feels about the other night. Nathan doesn’t reciprocate her attention and seems cold, which makes Issa think he doesn’t like her anymore.We also don’t know why Issa is nervous here — as far as we knew, she was happy being single. She’s at the beach with Nathan because she wants to be, but why exactly does she want to be there? It’s as if she hasn’t thought it all through herself. Nathan also doesn’t know what she wants, and it seems the failed cuddle muddled what he thought she wanted. He says as much to his friends as they drive to the bar Sharky’s, after an earthquake and the threat of a possible tsunami broke up the beach party.Whether at the beach or the bar or at a random Jason Derulo event later, Molly and Kelli play perfect sidekicks. Kelli is hilarious and experiences a series of emotional breakthroughs — she’s stopped drinking until she becomes “enlightened,” she says. That could be a cue for Issa and Molly to do the same, but no: Molly is being hounded by two of Nathan’s friends and she likes it, and Issa is still sorting through her feelings.These include something like jealousy when, while the others are playing spades, Issa is watching what she interprets as romantic flirtation between Nathan and his friend Resha, a short, voluptuous and bombastic woman. Issa surmises that Resha and Nathan have been intimate, and that pressure forces her to be up front with him.“I just wanted to check in, are we cool?” she asks.“Nothing’s changed for me,” Nathan responds, stoically.“So, we’re still friends?” she says humorously, fishing for warmth.“Yep,” Nathan replies before pulling away.In the last couple of episodes, we have seen how Issa has grown in the year since she broke up with Lawrence. She started her own company and mended her relationship with Molly. She’s confident at work — even though her client has been taking shots at her on social media — and has been taking time for herself. Her awkwardness and insecurity around Nathan illustrates the ways in which, for all of her personal progress and evolution, she’s still the same Issa we’ve known for years.She does not know enough about Nathan to be grounded in how she feels about him. He is a butterfly she is trying to capture in a jar, and he is constantly fluttering out of her reach.All we know about him is that on occasion, he disappears in order to deal with his mental health struggles. That is the reason he ghosted Issa last time, in Season 4. In this episode, we learn more about Nathan through his cousin, Thomas. For instance, when Nathan lived with him, he would leave without warning and come back days later, in the middle of the night. Such unpredictable behavior is why Thomas ultimately wanted Nathan to stop staying with him — this revelation shocks Nathan, who had always blamed his cousin’s wife for kicking him out. (At Sharky’s, the wife suggests that Nathan likes to abandon things.) The conversation reveals that in the time before he met Issa, Nathan was frequently “manic,” as he explains later.While her friends are at a Jason Derulo party, Issa finds Nathan trying to process what he’s learned from Thomas. After a day of multiple misfires, they are finally honest with one another and the ground shakes.“I don’t want to just be friends with you,” Issa says.“I don’t want to be friends with you either,” Nathan responds.Nathan and Issa embrace and as they kiss, there is an aftershock.Issa and Nathan might be getting back together now but it feels like there is much that is not being said, by both of them. I also can’t help but worry about Issa reuniting with an ex, who became an ex for a reason.Is Issa being honest with herself? Can she hold Nathan or will he flit away like he has so many times in the past? More

This week, Lawrence learns that fatherhood may not look like what he imagined.Season 5 Episode 3: Pressure, Okay?!At the end of the season premiere of “Insecure,” Issa broke up with Lawrence. This week, we take a peek at what his life has been like since then.Last season, Lawrence landed his dream job. The only problem? It was in San Francisco and his life was in Los Angeles. At the same time he was finally making strides in his career, he and Issa were finally mending their relationship after their previous breakup. Issa even volunteered to move to San Francisco so they could start a new life together.But then there was Condola. We all started out liking her — she arrived in Issa’s life at a time when Molly was not prioritizing their friendship. She was kind, smart and helpful. Even when Condola had an affair with Lawrence, it wasn’t ruinous. She informed Issa — who took the news with a brave face — and stepped back, freeing Lawrence to set his sights on Issa. We watched the show’s original couple glow onscreen and fall in love again.Then came the phone call: Condola was pregnant. That is where we left her in Season 4.Now she has had a healthy baby boy named Elijah Mustafa, like her grandfather, as her sister, (played by Keke Palmer), lets Lawrence know when he arrives at the hospital. It was the first sign that Lawrence might not have as much input into his son’s upbringing as he wanted or expected. There would be others soon enough.Lawrence seems to have gained the confidence and self-assurance he was lacking professionally in the early seasons — he’s had a bit of a glow up. He’s taking charge on accounts at work and he seems in control of what he wants to do, which has not always been the case. While on a date, he finds out, via text, that his baby has been born, and he blurts out the news to the lady he’s with.“I guess my baby was just born?” he said, confused.“Can you imagine?” she says, as if he had uttered an incomprehensible joke.He drops a fistful of cash onto the table and heads for L.A. When he arrives at the hospital, Condola is holding their son in her arms with her sister and her mother, played by the tremendous Lela Rochon (“Waiting to Exhale,” “Boomerang”), beside her. It becomes clear that Condola’s family has provided most of the support during her pregnancy while Lawrence has been unattached and living his life — the tension in the hospital room reflects that inequity.Lawrence doesn’t seem to like his son’s name, but he accepts it begrudgingly. When he finally holds the baby, his face is illuminated with an emotion that initially appears to be joy but soon turns into something sadder. Is he disappointed to have missed the birth? Realizing how complicated it will be to stay involved in the boy’s life, given Condola and her family’s feelings about him? Still struggling to accept that his son is named Mustafa?One thing is clear: Lawrence wants to be there for his son. But what’s less apparent is whether he understands what that actually looks like or what he’ll have to give up in order to do it. While Condola is sleep deprived, breastfeeding and managing her newborn’s schedule, he’s living in San Francisco, working late and going on dates. Flying to Los Angeles once a week is not fatherhood, especially when you occasionally cancel the trip at the last minute and blame work.More tension arises when Condola and Lawrence go together to Tiffany and Derek’s party for their daughter. Lawrence initially seemed reluctant to go with Condola, but he obliged when she, seemingly extending an olive branch, clarified that they’ll go together with their child.The party is fly, as can be expected from Tiffany and Derek. Kelli is MCing the event in a tuxedo to match the birthday girl’s, and there’s a Pepper Pig — not Peppa, Pepper (“with the E and R”), played by Kelli’s stoner cousin in a pink pig costume. But things go sideways when Lawrence feeds Elijah what he calls “mush,” alarming Condola.“I haven’t introduced solid foods yet!” she exclaims, and Lawrence asks her to let it go. She asks him to hand over Elijah (who Lawrence just calls “Jah”) and it quickly turns into a whole scene, with Condola yelling “give me my baby” and Lawrence objecting that Elijah is his son, too.Even after Derek intervenes, Lawrence can’t seem to articulate his frustration beyond “that’s my baby, too.” He seems to have conflated making a baby with raising a baby, and feels entitled to spend time with Elijah without knowing him or doing much to care for him.Derek suggests that Lawrence not antagonize Condola or add stress to the situation. It’s solid advice that Lawrence ignores later when things finally come to a head, after Condola rescinds her agreement to let him keep Elijah overnight. Lawrence breaks and lets out all of his resentment toward her.“I’m going to be there for my baby, with or without you,” he says contemptuously.Condola asks him to leave and he does, but on the flight back to San Francisco, severe turbulence terrifies Lawrence and the rest of the passengers. It seems a near-death experience can puncture the ego — after he gets home, he calls Condola and apologizes for his behavior. They are tired, and both seem ready to move past the tension and figure out a more cohesive way forward. But what that actually looks like is anyone’s guess.This episode illustrates that for all of his professional achievements, Lawrence has remained emotionally stagnant. He doesn’t trust Condola and she doesn’t trust him, especially with their son. He also resents Condola for deciding to have a baby without him — as if she conceived on her own — and tells her so. He does not like that she named the child without consulting him and that she won’t bend to his schedule. He tells his friend Chad, a fan favorite, that he is disappointed in how fatherhood has turned out for him.“This is just not what I planned for my first kid, man,” Lawrence gripes.“Everybody got a plan until they get punched my guy,” Chad responds, a riff on the Mike Tyson quote. (“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”)It is sad to watch Lawrence struggle into fatherhood. But I can’t help but be happy for Issa, who made the tough call of not subscribing to this life with him. Here’s hoping that Lawrence can let go of the life that he thinks he should have and learn to embrace the journey in front of him. More

The characters of “Insecure” set off to close out their final season with intention.During the first episode of the final season of HBO’s “Insecure,” we meet “Throwback Issa,” the college-aged version of Issa staring back at her in the bathroom mirror.This time, Issa doesn’t rap to her reflection. Instead, they catch up and she looks at her younger self endearingly. “I forgot how cute I looked with twists,” Issa says to her reflection. And the younger version of herself is struck by who she’s become. “Issa?! Is that me?” she asks.After they spend a minute admiring their teeth, they awkwardly cut one another off, as if they are both thinking and doing the same thing. In this tango you can tell that while Issa does not look like she used to — now she has a more auburn hair color and doesn’t wear braces — she is very much the girl she used to be, in essence.“Throwback Issa” was the most literal reflection upon the past in an episode set at Issa and her L.A. crew’s 10-year-reunion at Stanford, their old stamping ground. The crew looks as good as ever. Kelli and Tiffany in Gucci? Yes. (Tiffany only wore pink and green the entire episode). Issa and Molly in classed up Stanford sweaters? An aesthetic I can subscribe to.It was a weekend that involved plenty of time traveling. We saw college Issa admiring but also being slightly disappointed in current Issa. Later, on an alumni panel, current Issa worries about future Issa’s time to do the things that she wants to do. Molly finds herself thinking back about her younger, more bullish self. Kelli flies too far into a future where she no longer exists, and doesn’t like her legacy. The characters are looking back to see how far they’ve come and learn where they want to go.The episode also picked up the pieces of the more recent past. Last season, we left Issa in an entanglement with Lawrence, who had recently found out that his ex, Condola, was pregnant. At the time, Issa was considering moving to San Francisco with Lawrence, who had just found a job there. The pregnancy was a brick thrown through the window of their relationship.Issa and Molly’s relationship, the one viewers tune in for, was on thin ice and the heaviness of their love lives threatened to fracture it. Their dreamy hangout scenes were gone — now there was only awkwardness.This week there was movement on each of these fronts. Issa and Molly are in agreement on what they want: to move forward, to grow past the obstacles in front of them. They are done trying things on, they know more about who they aren’t and what they don’t want in their lives. “I know you’re a big-time lawyer now,” reflection Issa says. “No, I never really wanted to be a lawyer,” current day Issa responded, with a certainty that escaped her younger self.During the panel, Issa is joined onstage by a filmmaker, a start-up founder and the advertising art director at Coca-Cola, all alumni. Issa was invited as an entrepreneur and founder of “The Blocc” — we don’t know much about the company (and it’s not clear if she does either) but I love this for her.When the moderator asks the panelists when they found stability in their life, Issa doesn’t have an answer. She is honest with her audience and tells them that she’s unsure and that she may be wasting her time, but she’s also talking to herself. It’s as if by hearing herself talk about her latest endeavor, she comes to understand the risks associated with it in a way she hadn’t before.Throughout the episode, Issa is so focused on her future and past that she is incapable of being present. Whenever she is asked what the name of her company stands for, she stammers, unable to remember. She may have her own company now, but she is still managing apartments and driving a Lyft. This all appears hard for Issa to reconcile but I get the impression that she eventually will. This isn’t “Game of Thrones.”Back in the quad, Molly, three-months after her break up with Andrew, is trying to be a good friend to Issa because that’s what Molly needs from her. After the struggles of last season, Molly now seems ready to triage the friendship, softly asking Issa, “Are we going to be OK?”Molly also seems to be caught in a flashback on campus. While on a walk with Issa she remembers the confidence that she used to have. “Freshman year, we thought we had it all figured out.” The fire that used to define her, her tenacity and ambition, is absent. But I doubt that it’s gone forever.Kelli, on the other hand, is believed to be dead by the organizers of the reunion — she was marked as deceased in the program and even appeared in an in-memoriam video. (“Stanky Legg” by the GS Boyz plays in tribute when her face appears.)At first, she thinks it might be good for her to “go off the grid,” but then something else sets in. When she realizes that she is only remembered for her allergy to kale and solid stanky leg, it stops being fun for her. Kelli’s modus operandi has generally been to go with the flow, but maybe it’s time to swim upstream.When the girls are on their way to Reggae Gold, an old haunt in Oakland, Kelli is not as amped as the other girls. She is obviously disturbed and interrupts a singalong to The-Dream’s “I Luv Your Girl,” an on-the-way-to-the-club ritual, to let them know why she isn’t feeling the party vibes. She is quickly dismissed. Maybe playing pretend dead hit too close to home for her.The next morning at a diner, they give Kelli an appropriate in-memoriam tribute. When they leave, Molly and Issa walk past three young giggly girls, one carrying a poster that read “take action.” The girls apologize for bumping into them. Issa looks back at them as if they seemed familiar, it was like seeing their younger selves walk right past them. As those girls fade behind them, Issa and Molly tell one another they want to move forward.Then Issa proceeds to do so. When she flies home, Lawrence is waiting for her at LAX in a black hoodie, looking sorry and feeling sorry. (Yes, I’m still mad at Lawrence for getting Condola pregnant while trying to mend things with Issa.)What is different about Lawrence’s pitifulness is that Issa is no longer willing to take part in it. She breaks up with him and he immediately understands. The breakup was quiet — no arguments or shock, just an understanding between two adults. It was a more mature and cleaner breakup than their traumatic first one.Time is running out for “Insecure” and perhaps also, the premiere seemed to suggest, for maybes and half-steps as the characters consider the direction of their lives, beyond young adulthood. There’s not much time left to be insecure. More