Welp

Did anyone else catch the continuity error with Bow’s hair in the scene with the doctors at lunch?

US viewers note, there is a spoiler for episode 3 in one of the recommended articles that breaks up the text in this one, boo!

I guessed what Billie’s secret was (not the circumstances, but that she’d have a child) based on the episode title on Hulu, A Children’s Story. I’m wondering why they recast Denise Dowse as AJ’s mother?

I’m just catching up on episodes, but did anyone see the Blue Lives Matter flag on the back of the fire truck? You see it for a split-second in the scene right after Buck tries to drink straight from the coffee pot. Wondering if that’s always been there...

I thought Seahorse was Jessica Simpson. She sounds more twangy than Tori Kelly, plus I said the feathers/Birdie connection right before Joel did. I also recently read her memoir and I thought the broken heart referred to her making it to the last round but then bombing her Mickey Mouse Club audition. If Serpent is someone from Hamilton, my guess is Chris Jackson.

I wonder if the show is in talks to resume filming and she didn’t want to take on the added stress of travel, quarantine, distance schooling her kids, etc. She seems to really love being a mom and being with her immediate and extended family, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she shifts her focus to the winery and other lifestyle ventures.

31 with 2 kids, but they’re too young to be interested, so I binged it on my own. Re: Jessi, I’m glad they got rid of that backstory, and hope it stays that way—even as a kid I rolled my eyes at the Black girl’s backstory having to be about racism (defined as individual acts of meanness). I’d prefer a nuanced take on diversity woven throughout the show, and I think the writers are capable. Also hoping for an updated version of Keep Out, Claudia.

So glad this show is back! The baby I’d just found out I was pregnant with before the Season 3 finale is nearly walking, so it has definitely been too long. I love what this show has to say about Black female friendships, but it’s sad and frustrating to see the fractures in Molly and Issa’s relationship and know what it leads to. IMO, Molly is projecting her ish onto Issa because she’s struggling to reconcile her “Bad Bitch” persona with her fear of being labeled Can’t Keep a Man (TM). I hope her text to Andrew at the end means we’ll see growth this season, but not at the expense of their friendship! I think the Issa/Condola (side note: she looks like the love child of Sanaa Lathan and Vanessa Simmons) awkwardness didn’t resonate with me as much because it’s been such a long wait—I wonder if binge-watching from S1 and feeling more connected to the show’s timeline would change that.

@ElectricBoogaloo My bad! I’m a big ANR fan, so I forgot NB had been in the episode by the end.

Those diapers in the background when Elena was at the drugstore were definitely modern-day Pampers Pure, lol.

@ElectricBoogaloo That was Anika Noni Rose, not Nicole Beharie.

I liked this episode and found it, in some ways, more subtle than I've come to expect from TIU. When Beth laid it all out there it made me think of a few friends with similar frustrations, and we're a decade younger than R&B. They're married to self-identified "woke", liberal guys who still 1) make career decisions without considering the impact on parenting/childcare and 2) "pitch in" to take care of the kids but rarely do so as solely their responsibility. (Some of my own family members acted surprised whenever my now-toddler was home *alone* with her father when she was a baby.) I think Sterling and Susan have also spoken about helping the writers make their relationship culturally authentic, and I was wondering while watching if they were trying to convey subtext about gendered expectations specific to Black women (e.g., being "ride or die"). That plus the difference in their upbringings (the restaurant scene was just one example of Randall being raised/expected to not make waves about racism, which clearly wasn't Beth's experience) leaves a lot to explore. For a lot of reasons, I think they will stay together.

Meh, I thought this episode was just OK: -Liked the explanation that Willie Lynch is a hoax, albeit an enduring one. -Liked Diane pointing out she's the only dark-skinned one in the family and rej -Liked Dre pointing out Bow/Junior making similar points to White folks in convos about racism. -Liked the statistics about how light skin benefits from systemic oppression. The ending really fell flat to me: it is both true that Junior and Rainbow deserve to not be hurt by insinuations about their complexion coming from family *and* that colorism is about systemic disadvantage for dark-skinned people across all institutions. There was a missed opportunity to call out Rainbow calling Ruby a "monster" as an example of the dehumanizing, animalistic language directed towards darker-skinned Black women (see Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, the Sapphire stereotype, etc.). Intentional or not, I do agree with the comment upthread about colorism discussions frequently being centered on light-skinned feelings (similar to how discussions about racism often devolve into "not all White people"), and this one wasn't much different. I think it would've been interesting to call out that blindspot--the nature of intersectionality is that we are much more attuned to the manifestations of our disadvantages than our privileges. When those privileges get called out, it's easy to be defensive because we can't always see our *lack of disadvantage* relative to someone else. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

All I could think in episode 2 was how much Zoey looked like Rainbow Brite!

I wish Randall's storyline was a nuanced exploration of intraracial class tensions that ended with him 1) losing the election and 2) grappling with his savior complex. Now that Beth's onboard, I won't hold my breath.