What I’m Watching: Insecure

Insecure: Season 2, Episode 5 “Hella Shook” (B+)

I feel like people either have way too much fun at a work retreat or it’s completely miserable. It would have helped if Issa and Frieda were speaking to each other, but Frieda’s assertion that black people could be racist too didn’t sit well with her and caused extraordinary friction in their relationship. Out of all the people at their work who don’t get it, I think Frieda is actually far more attuned to what’s going on around her, at times even more so than Issa. She’s actually building something real with Daniel, yet her desire to create a roster of men is leading her to blow him off when he obviously cares about her, offering to come pick her up after he heard about her car accident. She’s not doing what she wants to be on her dates, and Daniel seems to make her happy. Lawrence is starting to get jealous, spotting Issa and Daniel in the back of a picture, which turned out to be more than just a distraction that helped him seem apathetic enough to get out of jury duty. Seeing Molly in a family context was very interesting, and she lost it as soon as she found out that her father had cheated on her mother and, worse still, she had forgiven him. Giving in to what she really wanted but had sworn she wouldn’t go for him was a clear sign that she just needed something to help her let go and blow off some steam.