Photo: Anne-marie Fox/HBO
Into the next bout of
Issa Rae’s brand new HBO sitcom
Insecure
(with however to air, so light spoilers ahead), Issa’s best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji) phone calls Issa as much as share her very good news; she’s got finally been acknowledged to
the League
, the special matchmaking application for “high-achieving” singles. Issa highlights that Molly is actually eventually watching men she likes â plus, failed to she state she was actually finished with dating programs? Molly shrugs her down. “we stated I was through with shitty-test site for big ass dating apps,” she retorts, pointing down your man she actually is seeing doesn’t need a college amount. “i am wishing like three months to obtain accepted for this. Now I am able to at long last date guys to my amount.”
Insecure,
co-created by Rae and Larry Wilmore,
is HBO’s long-awaited
follow-up
to Issa Rae’s successful web series
The Misadventures of Awkward Dark Female
.
In new show, Rae will be the titular “awkward” black colored girl navigating an average job at a nonprofit and an unsatisfying long-term connection; Orji is actually her BFF Molly, a successful attorney still seeking the best guy. Based on the six episodes HBO sent hit, it is also among the best shows about relationship and romance since
Sex therefore the City
(without whimsical, over-the-top quality that oftentimes permeated Carrie’s Manolo-clad gallop through New York dating world). And while different collection have actually resolved the digital rewiring of our own enchanting resides,
Insecure
is among the uncommon programs to really have the all-consuming culture of app-based internet dating baked into the narrative DNA.
Molly, particularly, shows the strange mental balancing act that accompanies
internet dating for the electronic age
, a parallel sense of scarcity and plenty: that reserves of eligible men are quickly depleting (the woman is crushed whenever she finds out her Asian colleague is actually interested to a qualified black colored guy), while at the same time, it could be stupid to stay when Mr. Ideal might be just one simply click or swipe out (“You gotta shag a lot of frogs for a good frog,” she muses at one point. “its a numbers video game”).
Insecure
explores what are the results whenever a contemporary, self-actualized profession lady knocks facing firm tactics about love and internet dating (even though those rigid a few ideas are her own). Molly is successful, beautiful, and smart â as Issa explains inside pilot, she can charm both grayscale people with equal convenience â and it is sick and tired of dating the people who will ben’t in her own category. “Even though we expectations does not always mean we’re difficult,” Molly proclaims at one point. However simultaneously, we watch this lady cut off a promising connection because the woman partner doesn’t fulfill the woman narrow pair of specs, while additional potential lovers are warded down by her tendency to go too quickly, the woman inability to experience the capricious games of modern love. (Although, indeed, why must she?)
The tv series
‘
s authors are obviously well-acquainted utilizing the intimate landscaping the tv series portrays, making for some great throwaway jokes. Within one world, we have flashbacks to Molly’s different times from different online dating services, all of which have actually their unique characters, from OKCupid (“free, but it is like bottom-of-the-barrel dudes) to Tinder (“used is cool but it’s essentially a fuck app”). But the show also catches the soul-destroying, round-robin quality of online dating in L.A., as over and over we view Molly fulfill some one brand-new only to have the woman hope dashed. “the guy could be various, you never know,” Molly says at one point, revealing Issa an image of her most recent match, a hopeful despair in her own vision.
One’s heart of
Insecure
will be the connection between Molly and Issa, both their particular rigorous love for just one another while the complex techniques both are envious and vital of just one another’s resides. Whenever Issa â ensconced in a long-lasting union because of the underachieving Lawrence (Jay Ellis) âcontemplates joining Tinder by herself, Molly chides the lady, “You ain’t about this app existence.” At another point, Lawrence suggests Molly is actually unmarried because the woman requirements are way too high; therefore, Issa shuts Lawrence down by indicating that her very own might have been as well reduced. While Molly consistently comes on also strong, Issa evades, prevents, and dissembles, choosing to cover rather than confront her connection head-on. Unlike Samantha, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte, Issa and Molly feel like real women
versus archetypes
. And yet, in their method, they capture both sides on the coin that is the modern-dating predicament â the concept that regardless you do, you’re carrying it out incorrect, deciding or selling your self short in some way. The tv show supplies no solutions, although it does recommend a potent antidote: a pal strong enough to stick to you through it all.