The gloves came off in my house last night. Not over Kavanaugh, not over November elections.
No, my husband and I were arguing over a fictional character--Molly--in "Insecure." Things became heated.
I have little patience for Molly, because she reminds me so often of myself. This season, Molly has been intermittently insufferable: judgmental, superior, close-minded. "Why," asked her therapist, early on, "why do you need to view work as a war zone? What if you went in and just tried to be as helpful as possible?"
This line of questioning didn't go far. Molly later made a veiled reference to the married man she'd been sleeping with, and it was clear the therapist had no idea what Molly was talking about. Not the most fruitful hour--maybe because the patient wasn't really willing to work on herself.
Molly made overtures to her female colleagues mid-season, then abandoned their project when the work became inconvenient. She responded to an admittedly obnoxious male co-worker by lying to him and sabotaging his work in one significant area. In her eleventh hour, this season, she decided to take control over Issa's life and omit important information from a discussion with Issa. (She also abandoned a date because of one careless remark, a remark she didn't really make an effort to understand. The blade of the guillotine came down!)
Bossy, unthinking Molly. Human, frail Molly. The reason my husband and I argued concerned one of the workplace scenes. Marc said, if you're dealing with someone aggressive, you sometimes need to be aggressive. Fair enough, but I feel Molly should not have lied to Torian; she should have let him know she was planning to defy him, regarding the presentation, before going ahead and defying him. Marc conceded the point, then donned his Chiefs cap and began speaking aloud to a stuffed "Chiefs Bear," in preparation for a football game.
I wish that this past season had a bit more suspense. I'm not all that invested in Issa Dee's block party--though I know it's a metaphor for what Issa *Rae* is doing with her show. It's about serving an audience that is often neglected. I get that. I just find the hemming and hawing w/r/t the block party somewhat tedious.
I continued to love the "Peanuts"-esque tone of certain segments. We saw this with Lawrence, regarding his battle with chlamydia. We saw it again this past weekend, regarding Kelli and Qwantrell. Like Lucy van Pelt, Kelli impetuously makes a conclusion about a stranger in the park. "That's Qwantrell! F*ck you!" Then, a reversal: "Oh, that's not Qwantrell. He's a good-looking man--there. I'm going to talk to him." And: Act Three. "It actually was Qwantrell." (Shrug.) "We're dating again." Delightful.
A major theme in the past eight segments has been reckoning with one's past. You see that in the Qwantrell bit: A fast-moving, over-confident human makes wrong judgments, then must reconsider her behavior. You saw it also with Lawrence and his disease: Those phone calls were a painful way of wrestling with one's former self. (And there was great, bizarre humor when Lawrence discovered his own narrative of his past was different from the truth. "Wait, we never slept together?" How many other shows have such a strong sense of the comedy of being human, the comedy of tripping up, over and over and over again?)
Most moving: Molly has to reassess her own character in the final forty minutes. Issa gives her a great gift: "This is actually how you behave. And this is how it *reads* to other people. And this is what your future will be if you don't correct your course." Molly hears Issa--despite the obvious tension--and we see Molly make a phone call in which she apologizes to her possible lover. Molly is candid, intelligent, and unsparing with herself. It's her finest hour.
I can't help but think of "Insecure" in reference to what is happening in the country right now. Of course, the connection is a coincidence. But what Kavanaugh seems to have entered is a Molly-esque World of the Divided Self. Like a struggling alcoholic, Kavanaugh seems to be making every effort *not* to come clean, *not* to think about what he has done and who he has been in his life. You can see the war printed on Kavanaugh's face. I don't like what I've seen of this jackass, but, also, I find his current story weirdly moving.
I wonder if Mr. Kavanaugh was watching "Insecure" on Sunday night? I doubt it. But, as is so often the case in life, I guess we'll never actually know.
No, my husband and I were arguing over a fictional character--Molly--in "Insecure." Things became heated.
I have little patience for Molly, because she reminds me so often of myself. This season, Molly has been intermittently insufferable: judgmental, superior, close-minded. "Why," asked her therapist, early on, "why do you need to view work as a war zone? What if you went in and just tried to be as helpful as possible?"
This line of questioning didn't go far. Molly later made a veiled reference to the married man she'd been sleeping with, and it was clear the therapist had no idea what Molly was talking about. Not the most fruitful hour--maybe because the patient wasn't really willing to work on herself.
Molly made overtures to her female colleagues mid-season, then abandoned their project when the work became inconvenient. She responded to an admittedly obnoxious male co-worker by lying to him and sabotaging his work in one significant area. In her eleventh hour, this season, she decided to take control over Issa's life and omit important information from a discussion with Issa. (She also abandoned a date because of one careless remark, a remark she didn't really make an effort to understand. The blade of the guillotine came down!)
Bossy, unthinking Molly. Human, frail Molly. The reason my husband and I argued concerned one of the workplace scenes. Marc said, if you're dealing with someone aggressive, you sometimes need to be aggressive. Fair enough, but I feel Molly should not have lied to Torian; she should have let him know she was planning to defy him, regarding the presentation, before going ahead and defying him. Marc conceded the point, then donned his Chiefs cap and began speaking aloud to a stuffed "Chiefs Bear," in preparation for a football game.
I wish that this past season had a bit more suspense. I'm not all that invested in Issa Dee's block party--though I know it's a metaphor for what Issa *Rae* is doing with her show. It's about serving an audience that is often neglected. I get that. I just find the hemming and hawing w/r/t the block party somewhat tedious.
I continued to love the "Peanuts"-esque tone of certain segments. We saw this with Lawrence, regarding his battle with chlamydia. We saw it again this past weekend, regarding Kelli and Qwantrell. Like Lucy van Pelt, Kelli impetuously makes a conclusion about a stranger in the park. "That's Qwantrell! F*ck you!" Then, a reversal: "Oh, that's not Qwantrell. He's a good-looking man--there. I'm going to talk to him." And: Act Three. "It actually was Qwantrell." (Shrug.) "We're dating again." Delightful.
A major theme in the past eight segments has been reckoning with one's past. You see that in the Qwantrell bit: A fast-moving, over-confident human makes wrong judgments, then must reconsider her behavior. You saw it also with Lawrence and his disease: Those phone calls were a painful way of wrestling with one's former self. (And there was great, bizarre humor when Lawrence discovered his own narrative of his past was different from the truth. "Wait, we never slept together?" How many other shows have such a strong sense of the comedy of being human, the comedy of tripping up, over and over and over again?)
Most moving: Molly has to reassess her own character in the final forty minutes. Issa gives her a great gift: "This is actually how you behave. And this is how it *reads* to other people. And this is what your future will be if you don't correct your course." Molly hears Issa--despite the obvious tension--and we see Molly make a phone call in which she apologizes to her possible lover. Molly is candid, intelligent, and unsparing with herself. It's her finest hour.
I can't help but think of "Insecure" in reference to what is happening in the country right now. Of course, the connection is a coincidence. But what Kavanaugh seems to have entered is a Molly-esque World of the Divided Self. Like a struggling alcoholic, Kavanaugh seems to be making every effort *not* to come clean, *not* to think about what he has done and who he has been in his life. You can see the war printed on Kavanaugh's face. I don't like what I've seen of this jackass, but, also, I find his current story weirdly moving.
I wonder if Mr. Kavanaugh was watching "Insecure" on Sunday night? I doubt it. But, as is so often the case in life, I guess we'll never actually know.
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