The hallmarks of Insecure and insecurity are questionable decisions. Both the show’s characters and its fans have all, at one point, asked themselves: “Should I be doing this?” “How am I doing this?” and “Why on God’s irreversibly warmed earth am I doing this?”
For viewers, answers to these questions tend to come with age. However, this week, Molly’s storyline and internal conflict afforded the only plot points keeping fans tethered to the fact that Insecure is a story about grown ass people.
Almost every other situation the rest of the show’s ensemble found themselves in felt analogous those you’d find on a college campus—like allowing white women to fetishize you only to pull up to your ex’s spot once you fall short of a stereotype, getting played in front of an old flame at a party by a cornball you met on Tinder and getting fingered under the table by a dude whose name you can’t remember while out to dinner with your friends.
Molly might have made the sole adult decision of the episode (and possibly the series) by curving Dro, her friend and a married man, even after he disclosed his marriage is open — but was that decision necessary?
While the margins of monogamy are plain — you devote yourself to one person until that becomes too taxing, then you cheat on that person with a music producer and claim their body was an itch you needed to scratch — there’s more room for grey within polyamory.
Partners outside the core dynamic of a polyamorous relationship can sometimes get lost in that grey. And in “Hella LA,” that’s exactly where we find Molly —trying her best to navigate her friendship with Dro, the idea of tradition, and her interest in both.
In that, her conflict seems to be two-sided: if she is open to polyamory, (which she isn’t sure if she is) is she open to engaging in such with a friend?
Polyamorous partnerships come with a sort of controlled freedom that allows partners both in the purview and periphery of the main relationship to do what feels right on a day-to-day basis. Within that framework, people are free to pursue any and all situations of unanimous interest, and opt out the moment those situations become uncomfortable (which is why many poly folks only date other poly folks). But in terms of dating friends, for most, opting out of a sexual relationship could mean opting out of the original friendship.
Should she ever come around on the idea, conventional wisdom, something that seems noticeably absent from the lives of these characters, would suggest Molly test the waters before diving into anything with Dro. That means checking in with his wife, her friend by extension, to see if she approves of Molly’s involvement in her and her husband’s arrangement.
Moreover, as most projected images of polyamory are conspicuously patriarchal, often only celebrating a man’s romantic fluidity and ignoring that of a woman, Molly should check to see whether the arrangement is even legitimate.
Given how trash every main or recurring character on this show not named Jared or Tasha seems to be, it’s possible, even likely, Dro’s marriage is monogamous as fuck and he’s attempting to lie his way into bed with an old friend.
He could either be suspect in his assertion that he’s not “out in these streets hoeing around,” or sincerely echoing Molly’s intention of “taking things as they come.” In any case, we’re certainly going to find out.
While she declined his advances that night, the writers responsible for these brilliantly frustrating arcs tend to employ initial rejection as a way of prolonging the inevitable—as evident in Issa and Daniel, Lawrence and Tasha, and even Jared and Molly’s past relationships.
In the coming weeks, we’re almost sure to see Molly endure the rules to the exceptions of an open relationship and, knowing Insecure, how messy all of that can be.
