What I’m Watching: Modern Love

Modern Love: Season 2, Episode 4 “A Life Plan for Two, Followed by One” (B+)

This season has been interesting since its installments don’t offer definitive happiness or resolution for its characters, but instead an acknowledgment of the many different shapes in which love can come. I was very pleased to see Dominique Fishback, who I first saw in a breakout performance in “Night Comes On” and who earned attention for her major role in “Judas and the Black Messiah” last year, as Lil, who had a great sense of humor and overall attitude even though her best friend never noticed her as more than just a friend. I’m not familiar with actor Isaac Powell, who played Vince, but they had superb chemistry together, and it was fun to see them take over the roles from the younger actors. This story was very familiar in a lot of ways, indicative of relationship dynamics where romance is clearly the right direction but one party is resistant to it and will always think that it can’t work for some reason. Watching it all play out was entertaining and also frustrating since there were obvious opportunities where Vince could have realized that his best friend was the one who made him happiest rather than just someone who would always have that one role in his life. Ending the episode on an open note was clever and actually quite satisfying, since it’s true that timing doesn’t always work out and sometimes people miss their windows, with big speeches and grand gestures not effective to cure all past wrongdoings in every case.