The ending ‘Insecure’ will make a lot of people angry

Depends on who you are, Sunday night finale of Not safe is either a fairy tale or a nightmare — so it could be perfect for the series, a show about a group of Black female friends whose choices we can’t take our eyes off, loved by delegator, and is often angered by . It’s a series not just entertainment; it may be related, and Sometimes it’s really unbearable.

I can’t believe how Issa, the character created by and brought to life by Issa Rae, finished. I envy her. I was disappointed with her. Most of all, I’m happy for her. Meaning, after five seasons together, I think about Issa the same way I think about my best friends.

The final episode of HBO’s groundbreaking comedy, the first comedy to follow the path of Sex and the city and Girls and centers the relationships of a group of female friends around the Black Man’s experience, which begins shortly after the previous episode’s drama: Issa’s ex, Lawrence (Jay Ellis), and her current boyfriend, Nathan (Kendrick Sampson), almost got into a fight at a party.

In the end, it was an atomic bomb dropped on the place that supposedly brought Issa happiness. She looked happy. She has been successful in her professional life and, with Nathan, is about to settle down in her personal life. This war is terrible. In the first moments of the episode, Nathan leaves her. (The few beats of them just sitting silently in the car together, afraid to deal with the inevitable, are painfully familiar. This is an unrivaled performance that not only captures the excitement of the top. life, but also the pain of its quietness.)

The breakup was the catalyst to, once again, addressing the central question of the series — one that has evolved as we’ve watched its characters evolve but remains essentially the same. together.

It’s not just, “Can we be happy?” but, “What does happiness mean?” That looks like the changes. What we would like looks like changes. But want it? No matter how many times we get knocked down, disappointed, or even think we’ve achieved it in some way, the longing for it never goes away. Not safe always about that striving. And that can be, well, messy as hell.

“I just want to fast-forward to the part of my life where everything is fine,” Issa told herself in the mirror, saying that sassy and gentle fantasy version of her has always been one of her favorite moments. Not safeThe most amazing plot device. That’s the therapy we almost never do: Therapy with our own selves.

And so it’s saying that, after Issa said that sentence – telling the world that common sense – Mirror Issa couldn’t even keep a straight face. She jokes and laughs. Issa knows – the show knows, we know – that to get what you need out of life, you have to work and feel through it all, especially the bad parts.

The episode that follows the promise of Issa, Molly (Yvonne Orji), Kelli (Natasha Rothwell), and Tiffany (Amanda Seales) got to know each other when Tiffany and her family moved from Los Angeles to Colorado: Things get busier and tougher as you get older, and friendships can get pushed down the priority list. At the very least, they will see each other on their birthdays.

So throughout the episode we see them getting along. We see how they have changed. We saw how that idea of ​​happiness evolved — the unexpected but happy satisfaction they got when they got what they needed, even when they didn’t know they wanted it; inevitable sadness when it’s still out of reach, but the enlightenment to still walk through life despite it.

On Molly’s birthday, she and Issa are having a quick heart and she watches for her. “Are you still…” she asked Issa, who finished her sentence. “A mess?” The old Issa wouldn’t even be able to articulate that. Now, she allows herself to feel and work with it.

On Issa’s birthday, a few months later, Nathan stops by to see her. It’s not a war at all. It’s certainly not pleasant, but it’s wonderful in a meaningful way to have someone who has made an indelible and indelible impression on your heart and life — even if sadness is involved. Mandarin.

Issa told Nathan: “I always think that everyone comes into your life for a reason. “You have created so many good reasons for me. And I hope that I do the same to you. Because I don’t want you to regret anything.” That might be the best thing I’ve ever heard about relationships in a TV series, and it’s about a failed relationship.

That’s what this show instilled in us, which we were too naive or too scared to realize: There’s more in life that doesn’t work out than it does, and that’s not failure. . That’s just what happens in life. We harm ourselves when we don’t validate and appreciate those things — and not defeat, but victory, because they’re things we’ve been through, that can meaning and that has changed who we are.

Issa overwhelmed on her birthday. There’s a certain audacity to letting herself feel loved, and she struggles with that. It is something that you cannot separate from your life when you want to celebrate, to forget your worries and depressions and all the wishes you have that have yet to be fulfilled. Celebrations only heighten your vision and focus on the things you don’t like. In a way, that’s why they’re important — and why it’s a clever construct to skip over time and show us what happens to these characters.

It’s a finale about how terrible birthdays are, but still important. Company shaken.

The fairy tale of Not safe In the end, no one gets a book with a happy ending, but they’re fine. As for this show that has always been real, maybe it’s a bit of a fiction. But this is a TV show about what we all need in life, and especially right now, we viewers need that from it.

Molly gets the most traditional happy ending of all. She’s married to Taurean (Leonard Robinson), and it’s beautiful — perfect, even, except that her mother isn’t there to see it. More importantly, she and Issa are still best friends, as close as they once were.

When she says thank you to Issa for “being you” and “loving me when I am,” it becomes clearer than ever that this is the show’s love story. Imagine having a partner who always sees you in every intricate and maybe even horrible detail about who you are, and sees that as a worthwhile unconditional love.

And that leads us to Issa.

I know people will hate her back with Lawrence.

I see people saying on social media that the only true ending for Not safe will be all these women end up alone. Maybe that would be a nice message to send: being alone doesn’t mean being lonely, and can actually be one’s preferred existence.

Merie Weismiller Wallace / HBO

It’s also possible that Issa’s return to her former fiancée is too clichéd narrative for a series like this. I find it believable that, while we’ve spent five years contemplating our own scenarios and feelings, Issa serves as an avatar for how we all age and go through life. , this show clearly paints Issa’s image as an individual. This is not an obvious or meaningful ending for everyone. But it certainly makes sense for her.

Everyone develops at different rates, and that’s always been the problem that keeps Issa and Lawrence from ever working. But time is something we never allow. What if time allowed that development to happen at its own pace, and then allowed everyone to come together when they were ready? Maybe it’s also a fairy tale. (Again, this is a TV show.) But it’s nice to see life turn out that way: the way it should, but we’re often too impatient for it to happen.

The finale greatly influences the romantic concept of who you once loved — or, maybe more accurately, who once loved you. But it’s also taken enough time to discover what it feels like to be a cluttered person trying to clean himself up that this notion is not toxic but healing and healthy.

It got us into the idea that heroines and protagonists – or in life, the people you love – don’t always end up with what we consider a happy ending. traditional meaning. But all we can hope for and appreciate is how happy it is for them. That’s what we see in the final moments of the episode as Issa looks into the mirror again.

Maybe that’s the idea this narrative device has been playing with: not being able to see yourself for who you really are, right now at this very moment – and how glorious it must be when at last. you can do it too.