High-Like: Insecure Season 3, Episode 5 Recap

This post is in partnership with HBO. As always, thoughts and opinions are my own.

Running – Issa is driving Lyft to make ends meet after quitting her We Got Yall job, and gets all types of passengers. Best one? Thug Yoday! She ends up at Molly’s job with all types of errand stuff for her bestie to get her ready for their trip to a music festival in California where Beyonce is performing! They both need this trip and Beyoncé’s performance so bad that Issa does the Formation choreography as she leaves.

Credit – Molly is in a meeting at work and her colleague, Torian, is hogging all the credit on a case they’re working on. She volunteers to work on an important brief, knowing doggone well that she has a girls trip to go on. But she does not want to be outshone. Group projects are always the worst.

Girl Bye – Issa shuts her apartment door and leaves a sign that she is out for the weekend so ain’t no property managing. Just then, her upstairs neighbor Trina comes out complaining about bed bugs. No thank you, bye!

Kelli and Tiffany are there to pick Issa up and Molly isn’t in the car. Why? Because she told them she has work to do and can’t go anymore. Nah, son. Unacceptable. Issa calls her BFF and insists that she has to go. She even offers to help her with the brief. Even though Molly knows she’s biting off more than she can chew, she gives in. She’ll meet them there.

Girls Trip – The girls get to their AirBNB and instead of getting the party started, they go on lame mode. Tiffany wants to get a nap in cuz her and the baby need a quick recharge. Kelli? Well, she took an edible and is now operating on slo-mo. Molly texts to say she’ll be there in 2 hours but by the time she gets there, everyone is asleep. This is not a terrible thing because it gives her a chance to work on the brief.

Beyoncé or Bust – The next morning, a refreshed and recharged Issa goes banging through the house to wake the girls up yelling “Beyonce or Bust.” They wanna snatch her edges cuz she’s making all this noise, but she charges them up. Molly can’t be mad anymore after she gets a thumbs up email from her bosses for the brief, so now she can legit party. They take a shot of Rosé and go get dressed. Nathan then texts Issa and says he is at the music festival last minute and at a pool party. Yup, switch of plans!

Molly Squared – The girls end up at the V Hotel and see Nathan, which tells Molly exactly why this stop got added to their plans. He is rolling with 2 other guys and they offer the girls some molly (ha!) to get the party started and they oblige. They even offer Tiffany some and she’s like NAWL. See bad influence.

High on molly, Issa and Nathan are in their own world at the pool party. The hyper sensitive touch that is a side effect of the molly has Issa turned up and on. Her and Nathan start kissing. Whew. Yall better. On the other side of the pool, Molly is Molly squared, and high AF. She then starts telling all her business to Nathan’s boys, cuz who has shame when high as a kite?

Festival Crew – The crew of 7 make it to the music festival, still high. Their cellphone service is shot to pieces and Tiffany is basically the chaperone. She insists they go get a good spot to get ready for Beyoncé, and they get one.

Then Issa and Nathan go to get food but Tiffany says no one else can leave the spot or they’ll lose it so they have to walk away in shifts. Molly’s high ass takes off her jacket and lays it on the ground, saying she’ll save it but the “Asian one” tells her she can’t sit while on molly or she’ll pass out so he lets her lean on him. Meanwhile, Kelli grabs Nathan’s other friend and walks away.

High and On – As they walk through the festival, Issa asks Nathan why he hadn’t really contacted her and he said he was making sure she didn’t think he was pressed. She starts rapping, not knowing she said it out loud but when he picks up her rap, she jokes and says they should start a group. She turns around and sees a ferris wheel, insisting they go on it. Turns out that Nathan is scared of heights but he does it anyway. He calls her amazing and she rebuts with the fact that she quit her job. Which leads to him telling her that she is super brave and gives her the cutest TED talk affirming her dopeness.

Just then, the ferris wheel stops. Crap, it’s stuck. The conductor says she has to go get a backup battery. Nathan is scared sh*tless but Issa starts kissing him. And that leads to her straddling him and then… BOOM CHICKA WAH WAHHH. Making the secks.

Or Bust – Kelli shows up back in the spot and sees a white girl sitting on someone’s shoulder, blocking everyone’s views. She asks the girl to get down and is laughed at. What does our girl do next? She snatches the girl down and they start scrapping. Molly jumps in as Tiffany just yells and sprays water at the melee. Police show up and break up the fight, dragging Molly and Kelli away.

Issa and Nathan are done doing the do when she gets a phone call. Tiffany tells her security has the girls outside the walls of the festival, cutting off their wrist bands. They’ve been kicked out of the festival, as Beyoncé’s set starts. Kelli is determined to see Queen Bey and starts running towards the wall when she gets tased. Nooooo. She’s peed herself and is writhing on the ground. Poor thang. The girls’ cellphones ping cuz outside the festival, they got service. Molly sees last minute notes from her bosses but Torian seems to be playing Captain Save the Day, which is what she wanted to avoid. Molly wants them to leave immediately so she can get to her laptop.

Mad Blues – Issa and Nathan arrive at the house but she says she gotta go face the storm herself. He kisses her goodbye and says he’ll talk to her the next day. When she walks in, Kelli is in the corner of the couch mad because she peed herself and got tackled. Molly is on the floor typing furiously and when Issa grabs her laptop, she realizes also nonsensically. She is too high for productivity. Tiffany? She’s in the closet crying on the phone to Derek, after admitting that she took a bite of a weed brownie. All Issa can think about is that her friends are mad at her, not that they have real issues to deal with. Tase-rage. They are all a wreck.

The next morning, Tiffany wakes up first looking for water. They are all finally sober and off their high. But they look a total mess and Kelli thinks her getting tased was a dream. Tiffany only finds vodka, so her and Issa go to the store. In the car, she admits that she’s been feeling left out of the squad since she got pregnant, which is why she insisted on coming on the trip. Things have changed about their friendship, and the baby isn’t even here yet.

Issa goes in the store, and Nathan texts her to ask if her friends are okay. Just then, she runs into Chad.

And then Lawrence. Oh sh*t!

Molly keeps putting herself in these terrible situations with work. She’s the new kid and is putting so much pressure on herself to come out guns blazing as a star student. It might serve her well to chill for a bit, deal with the grandstanding coworkers and then learn the dynamics. She’s rushing and tripping up because of it.

This Girls Trip was a complete bust, yo. But Issa did play her friends to the left a little bit with Nathan. She ditched them, and then got stuck in a Ferris Wheel and then got her vagina massaged as they were brawling. The fight, of course, was not her fault but her absence didn’t help. The space they were all trying to save was the cause and she coulda been there holding it down. Issa made a selfish decision and her friends had the right to be upset.

Now, I am here for Nathan. He’s all vulnerable and encouraging and open. He might be good for Issa. There is something here between them. BUTTTTTTTT is this Lawrence sighting gonna derail them? I really hope not. That fresh start she needed is here and I don’t want her to hustle backwards just because the past walked across her path. Lawd, let’s pray for her strength.