One of the greater joys of this
years Emmy nominations was Issa Rae receiving a much deserved Best Actress in A
Comedy nod for her brilliant work on that rarest of things, an undervalued HBO
comedy series. Insecure deals with
the life of Issa Dee, a twentyish African-American woman who has been trying to
make the right decision in work and life, and keeps failing at both. It sort of
came to a climax at the end of last season where, after complaining to her boss
about the level of racism at her job, she got demoted, her relationship with
on-again, off again slacker Lawrence finally imploded, and she moved in with
her former friend Daniel at the end.
If anything, things seem to be
getting even worse for Issa this season. She is so desperate to move out of
Daniel's house (where she is helpless to hear him noisily screw his girlfriend)
that she has taken up a job as an Uber driver, where we learn there are worse things
that can happen than a pickup vomiting in the backseat. Her boss refuses to
even listen to her suggestions about how to fix things at the educational
assistance program "We Got This", which is now getting racist
complaints about its logo even from white people. Her credit score is so bad
that her financial assistant is saying that she's established a level of credit below 'bad' just called
'Issa', and suggests performing sexual favors on Daniel, just to keep from
paying rent at Daniel's apartment. Even
the self-styled slams she does in her head seem to smack of desperation these
days.
Things are only going marginally
better for her friends. Molly (Yvonne Orji) has just started a job at new
all-black firm, and is the middle of a relationship with a handsome man with an
open marriage. "I thought that was something only white people did,"
Issa says talking it over. And Daniel is having trouble getting his music
career going, mainly because his agents keep bringing in women he slept with as
talent. His relationship with his new girlfriend is getting more complicated,
because of the fact he's cohabiting with Issa, and its not going to get any
easier now that they're sharing a bed (but not sleeping together yet)
If there's a complaint to be had
with Insecure, its that it often
tries to do too many things at once. No doubt some fans of the series are still
wondering where the hell Lawrence
is, or even if he'll show up again. But Rae remains a force of nature, someone
with just as good a rhythm for the black female voice as Donald Glover has for
the black male voice. I'm nowhere near the demographic for this series, but you
can recognize genius even whatever form it takes. I'm glad Rae got her first
nomination this year. I know its the first of many.
My score: 4.25 stars.
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