drops excessive. Sometimes the charac
ters spoke not like people but like sen
tient trending topics. Conversely, the
hammy whatdo Blackpeople do con
versations are part of the show’s charm.
An enduring problem has been the de
piction of Issa’s failing romance with
her longterm boyfriend, Lawrence ( Jay
Ellis), a depressed, outofwork soft
ware developer. Issa supports them both
with a job she hates at We Got Y ’All,
a white savior nonprofit. Their apart
ment doesn’t get good light, submerg
ing the couple in darkness. Early on,
Issa cheats on Lawrence with an ex,
Daniel (Y ’lan Noel), in what should be
a shattering affair, an original sin that
sets in motion Issa’s spiral of transfor
mations. But because there’s no chemistry
between Issa and Lawrence—even the
chemistry of detachment, the glimmer
of love lost—it’s hard to stay invested
in their onagain, offagain dynamic.
What did devastate and exhilarate, all
these years, was Issa and Molly. The two
were part of a bigger girl group, including
Tiffany (Amanda Seales), a bougie sorority
sister with a seemingly picture perfect
marriage, and Kelli (Natasha Rothwell),
a partyanimal accountant. (As the show
progressed, it gave more depth to Kelli,
but Rothwell, the best performer by far,
who also wrote for the series, was still
drastically underused.) The intimacy be
tween the two best friends ran bonedeep.
In the pilot, Issa dragged Molly to an
open mic night, where she performed
“Broken Pussy,” a rap inspired by Mol
ly’s romantic frustration. It was funny, but
it was also a violation, one that came from
profound connection. The show is so
good at tracking the highs and lows of
this kind of platonic knowledge. The two
are able to hurt each other as no man can.
Much of Season 4, the strongest in the
series, quietly traced the painful devolu
tion of their trust. The final episode of
Season 5 has yet to air, but I’d argue that
“Insecure” has already played, in the sec
ond episode of this season, a scene of con
summation: Issa and Molly, in bed, gaz
ing at each other in platonic ecstasy.
T
here is “Insecure” the art work, and
“Insecure” the phenomenon. The
show benefitted from the chatter in the
late twentytens about television under
going a “Black Renaissance.” It was true,
for a time, that Rae was the only Black
woman with a premiumcable series. But
that statistical fact obscured what made
“Insecure” compelling: its sense of his
tory and community and genre. The se
ries has always been a sitcom about sit
coms, television about television. It was
not radical; it liked tradition. There’s
no “Insecure” without “Girlfriends.” Rae
employed a retinue of primarily Black
writers and directors who gave the show
a house style. And every season, except
for this last one, contained a satirical show
within a show. References were made
to “Living Single,” “Martin,” “Scandal.”
These gags clarified the ambition of this
suave experiment: to gussy up the famil
iar with the aesthetics of the new.
At the end of the fourth season, there
was a “twist” that many viewers found
intolerable. It was soapy, critics argued,
to tease another reunion of Issa and Law
rence, and then to introduce an unplanned
pregnancy. Fair, but “Insecure” never
promised realism. It was a risk, and an
admirable one, to refurbish the tropes of
romantic comedy. Still, “Insecure” could
surprise. Some of the best episodes were
references to Richard Linklater’s “Be
fore” trilogy: long, meandering dates,
with L.A. glittering behind the lovers.
“Insecure” filled the hunger we had
for a lowkey Black comedy of errors. It
could have remained comfort food, but
as the seasons went along the storytell
ing matured. The characters changed;
aspirations to Black excellence were re
freshingly disavowed. The shenanigans
alternately vexed or tantalized you. Were
you Team Nathan (Kendrick Sampson)
or Team Lawrence? Was Molly ridicu
lous for shunning a lover because he had
once hooked up with a man? (She was.)
You became dedicated to “Insecure” as
you might become attached to a sport.
The theme of this final season is
growth. The episodes I’ve seen are funny,
melancholic, and not too ambitious plot
wise. The gentle momentum suggests
that the series will give us an oldschool,
satisfying closure. The season opens with
a reunion at Stanford, where the girls
confront the spectres of their past selves.
Molly chucks the weaves and crops her
hair. Kelli is Cali Sober. Issa realizes that
she has a knack for entrepreneurship.
She’s empowered by her quirks, but she’s
still prone to those reveries of ascension.
Still Issa, in other words, but thinking
about levelling up.