Still recovering from Sunday night’s finale of Insecure? You’re not alone. Conversations are still brewing about the ending of Season 1 and there are a lot of questions. Thankfully, Issa Rae, creator and star of the series, as well as writer of that last episode, took to the Insecure blog on Entertainment Weekly‘s website to give fans the tea on why certain moments happened leading up to and during the season finale:
Why Molly and Issa Had to Make Up
Molly and Issa have been calling each other out on their sh-t since the pilot. In fact, in the first episode, they have a blow up about Molly feeling like Issa exposed her “broken pussy” insecurities and Issa feeling like she’s been living for everybody but herself. This was something that continued to silently stew for both of them as they watched each other’s actions play out over the season, and so it felt natural to have it all boil over during a moment where they were both at lows. I think only your real friends can tell you the truth in a way that cuts deep, but that you need to hear and, in this case, they were both triggered with the truth and lashed out with low blows. We always knew that it would hurt to have them fight, but their friendship is so strong that it could withstand a little hard truth. They’re not frenemies; they actually need each other and they love each other — so we knew they’d make up.
On the Significance of the Couch (or “Bouch”)
One of our writers pitched the couch being on the curb throughout the season as a long running joke, and then we recognized how representative it was of Issa and Lawrence’s relationship and their past, and intentionally used it to convey that. Even though Issa and Lawrence resolved to make it work, the fact that the couch remained there was a lingering reminder that their relationship hadn’t truly made it out of the weeds yet. Replacing the couch was a temporary band-aid, but they needed more than a new couch to repair years of unsaid things in their relationship. To us, the couch represented a fresh start that was never really fresh. We were so excited to come up with the idea of Issa and Molly sitting on the couch together at the end of the season because their relationship is truly the core of the show, and to have Molly sitting on the couch with Issa at end shows how they were the only ones who were ever truly “in this” together.
Why Issa and Lawrence Had to Break Up
This was also something we discussed in the room. The idea of a woman cheating is so bewildering for a lot of men; like it’s a huge mark of betrayal for them in a way that’s kind of a double standard. I remember writing a film when I was younger and part of it had a woman cheating for reasons of lust and weakness. The executive who read it told me that a lead woman could not cheat because it makes them immediately unlikeable. He strongly believed that women could not come back from cheating and I remember thinking how unfair that was, because I watched shows and movies where women forgive men for cheating all…the…time. It was also important to me to have Issa cheat precisely at a moment where Lawrence wasn’t necessarily at fault; where it wasn’t about him, it was about her. I think we always think that a man has to do something for a woman to cheat, and this was very much about Issa and her decision to be “aggressively active” for once. She just failed to think about what she would lose in the process.
But even discussing it in the room, a lot of men felt like Lawrence would not be ready to take her back so easily — he never imagined that Issa, the woman he had grown to love and trust, would do this to him and would not be ready to take her back so easily. For that final scene where he goes back to his complex, seeing Thug Yoda and the old couch, then stepping into his old apartment felt like a regression to him. In a way, he would rather leave than face the hurt and Issa’s transgressions. I think for him, being in that environment, knowing that he had vowed to commit to this girl just a month or two before, was just too much to forgive at that point.
Where Things Will Go for Issa and Lawrence
I think we saw Issa at the beginning of this season decide to take life into her own hands and be active at all costs. We saw her make some pretty selfish and harmful decisions as result and, as the season progressed, we saw her appreciate some of what she already had in her life and to see her own fault in the things that weren’t going her way. I think this next season will see her start to ask more introspective questions. I think the break up will hit both Lawrence and Issa pretty hard and I think break-ups are rarely ever clean, especially for couples who lived together. So we know that Lawrence won’t be completely out of her life forever. We’re also really excited to develop what Issa and Molly possibly being single together looks like.
Images via HBO
