Tired, Okay?! – Insecure Season 5, Episode 6 Recap

Photo credit: Glen Wilson

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

Left Unsaid – Leaving off from the last episode, Issa decides to make her presence known to the new parents, and it is the most awkward thing. She looks at the baby and says he’s cute. Shockingly, Condola offers to let her hold him, and she says, “Yes.” She takes the baby, and they all have a sweet moment, when she throws him and yells, “Fuck them kids” and dropkicks Condola. LMAO!

Photo credit: Merie Wallace

None of that really happened anywhere but in Issa’s imagination. In reality, she’s at home stalking Lawrence’s IG, sad because she sees a recent post confirming he’s moved back to LA. 

Issa and Nathan are secksing, and in the heat of the moment, she asks him what he loves. When he answers that he loves what she’s doing right then, she ain’t like that. Afterwards, as they’re cuddling, she is distant, and he is rambling. *whispers* He ain’t said that “I love you” back.

At the barbershop, Nathan is having to apologize to Suge’s clients, who are waiting on him. One of them is especially pressed to get his haircut, so Nathan tells him he’ll cut him, knowing he’s breaking Shop Code by doing it. 

Issa brings the Carter family some food at the hospital when her phone rings and its Molly calling for the third time. She’s at a company retreat, but she can’t focus, cuz she’s worried about her mom and about not being there. Issa tells her to chill because her mom is stable. Meanwhile, Curtis Carter shows up and Issa’s got a little crush on Molly’s brother. UH UHHH. 

Bad Impression – Issa and Quoia are trying to get talent for their next event. They visit an artist group and tell them they want to have them be the face of their next project. The group is liking the proposal but then recognize the name, The BLOCC, for doing the event with Crenshawn. They decline, but Issa pushes, so they say they’ll think about it. Which also means NOPE. Dang, them tweets worked in sullying her name!

At the company retreat happy hour, Molly is distracted as her four coworkers are having a good time, enjoying all the good foods and alcohol. She keeps texting for updates on Mrs. Carter, and she plays off being on her phone by saying she was going to get a group picture of them. When they play a “First Impressions” game, she finds out the attorneys at Hayward were not fans of hers when she first started, but they’ve grown to love her. Let the drinks flow!

Time Wasted – The day after, Molly wakes up WASTED with a random watch and candy in her bed. She goes downstairs and the others are sitting at a table, and they welcome the “party animal” to join them. She says she found a watch on the ground away from her room (yeah ok) and wonders who it belongs to. It belongs to Taurean. Aw shit. Did they sleep together? NO. However, they do play phone video footage of a drunken Molly twerking and letting loose. Our girl is EMBARRASSED. 

Issa shows up to Crenshawn’s workshop with brownies as an olive branch, and the reception she gets is cold. She wants to talk about their “miscommunication,” and he is not here for it. “You were more concerned with your bag than my art.” He feels like she didn’t have his back, so he feels justified to be dragging her publicly. And because of their situation, he’s made a new sweatshirt line with “Integrity” on it. Issa takes her brownies and leaves.  

Photo credit: Merie Wallace

Real Life – The barbers are all together, minus Suge, who is late AGAIN. It’s rent time, and when he finally walks in, they ask him for his rent. Dude says Nathan got his, since he cut one of his clients. STAHP playing sir. The others speak up about his perpetual lateness, but Ari tells them to cut him some slack. Suge feels ganged up on and feels like he brings the big names to the shop, but no one appreciates him. When Nathan tells him to stop whining, things get ugly. Suge gets real cruel and throws out “bipolar” as an insult, while getting into Nathan’s face. Ugh.

The branding presentation is here, and Molly is leading it with Taurean, but she’s distracted cuz her phone is going off with notifications from Curtis. Is her mom okay?? Later, her and Taurean debrief and he calls her out for not being present during their presentation. She finally comes clean and tells him what’s going on with her mom. He divulges how his older brother was going through cancer treatments last year and how it made work so much harder. He states, “Work can’t matter more than real life.” Telling Molly to let him help her with workload in those moments. They realize they never talk about their real lives.

Photo credit: Merie Wallace

Issa runs into Condola at a restaurant, who thanks her for giving up on Lawrence so that she can have him so easily. She flashes her hand, and it has an engagement ring. She also says Lawrence makes a gazillion dollars and had a peen that just grew. As an exclamation point, Condola hits her with a bag and tells her to own her choices. Our girl Issa’s imagination really do be going wild for no reason whatsoever. This too was not real. 

Photo credit: Merie Wallace

Waking Up – Molly is back in her room after the long day and gets a call from Curtis. The moment she accepts the call, she bombards him with a series of questions, and he interrupts her to show her their mom, awake but not speaking yet. Molly tells her mom she loves her. She might be able to go home the next day, but recovery is long. She wants to rush home, but bro tells her to chill. She’ll see them at home.

Taurean knocks on the door and she opens it and hugs him. He’s the first person she’s talking to since finding out her mom is awake, so she’s thrilled. He hugs her back and then… they both share a small moment that seems as if they’re awakening some dormant feelings. There’s some sexual tension there and… maybe worth visiting?

Photo credit: Glen Wilson

Old Habits – At home, Issa and Nathan are debriefing about the day. He says he might be done with the barbershop, because he can’t trust anyone there. Maybe he needs to leave LA. Wait what?? She brings up how she told him she loved him, and instead of hearing it back, he says she’s making stuff all about her. She feels like she committed to their relationship but he’s just here for the ride without saying how he’s feeling. He does the good ol “you know how I feel about you” thing and the conversation devolves. He calls her out for being inconsistent and “all over the place” and they both do the avoidance thing they’re so good at. Sitting next to each other, with all the things unsaid. 

Photo credit: Merie Wallace

Issa is pining for Lawrence and is mad that Nathan’s not him. Nathan is afraid of anything that feels too real and runs away from it. Both of them are avoidant prone commitment phobes and it’s getting to the point where their relationship will implode because they’re both experts at self-sabotage. You cannot have two avoidant people as one unit because they will tend to run in opposite directions the moment, they feel like they’ve gotten too close. 

I think Issa is getting better about feelings, but the “Ghost of Lawrence” just won’t let her face forward without looking back at what they had. And that’s unfortunately because she made the right decision to break things off with him. But it’s been over a year, and she still hasn’t healed past where she should. 

Now Nathan has been on a new plan to be an adult who is setting roots down somewhere, not just this floating human who goes from place to place when things get hard. All that is in jeopardy because one bad day at the shop?? Got this man tryna quit cutting hair and leave the whole city. SIR… you better find you some resilience. This constant running from any conflict or obstacle is what he knows. It’s familiar, and frankly, immature. So, the argument with Issa that started one way ended as it did because he put the wall up and gaslit her concerns. She’s right to bring up the “I love you” that wasn’t returned and was right to be concerned about him mentioning leaving LA. His insistence and acting like she was being irrational was Old Nathan. I need him to tuck that in quick, fast, and in a hurry, or he will be back to square 1: broke, lonely and constantly seeking.

I will say that Nathan has one point: it is hard to trust the people at the barbershop. Not just Suge for weaponizing his diagnosis, but the others, for not speaking up for him properly. You don’t stand around and watch someone you know talk out the side of their neck recklessly and keep it moving. The silence was deafening as Suge was out of pocket and I don’t like it one bit. Ugh.

Now Molly… she has to learn to wield the power of vulnerability. I’m glad she finally told Taurean what was going on, because it humanized her. Plus, she’s been dropping the ball at work, because our lives do not operate in silos. What’s happening personally will bleed into our work. In this episode, her budding friendliness with Tauren def had my alarms going off, and not necessarily in a bad way. 

I think she’s always had this interesting chemistry with her coworker, and there might be something there. Especially in those moments they had by the door. A part of me DEFINITELY wants them to explore what could happen. Another part of me is afraid of what could happen if they do take it to another level, and she pulls a MOLLY and sabotages it. How will that bode for her job at that firm, and possibly her career? I’m nervous, but I’d very much like to see that unfold. They’re both two young, smart, hot, single Black people who are in close proximity. Might be about time Taurean and Molly jumped in bed. 

But we gon’ see.