I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I’m like, lowkey, hella sad AF about Insecure leaving, OK? (You see what I did there? I know you do.)
As many online have repeatedly expressed, the ending of Insecure feels like the end of a lit era, despite the fact that series creator Issa Rae is no doubt going to remain booked and busy in the aftermath.
Still, one can’t help but feel all the feels about not seeing one of our fave gangs of friends,—namely Issa, Molly, Kelli, and Tiffany—as they struggle to figure out both their professional and personal lives. Maybe it’s because we all have a friend like Tiffany or Chad. Maybe it’s because, like Lawrence, we can empathize with the struggle of sleeping on the couch whilst trying to strategize our next moves (that lowkey sounds like me during this entire pandemic, but I digress) or Issa’s day-to-day battles with her insecurities.
Or maybe we’ll miss Insecure for the way it beautifully captured and normalized Black mundanity. After all, it’s that same mundanity that Rae and costar Yvonne Orji partly credit to the show’s long-lasting success. Gracing the digital cover of Entertainment Weekly this week alongside Orji (who also appears on this week’s episode of The Root Presents: It’s Lit! podcast) and fellow costar Jay Ellis, Rae explained:
“I think the shows where you get to watch people just being excite me. We always say internally in the room, it’s [about] being Black on a Tuesday. Those are the stories we’re telling.”
Orji expressed similar sentiments:
“It shows Black people just being Black without any extra sauce. So many times when you have a show that centers around Black characters, it’s like, ‘Okay, well what is the plight that they have to overcome? Was it a deadbeat dad? Was it cocaine?’ No, [on Insecure], it was having a degree and still not finding the job you want. That’s also a real-life plight of Black people. It doesn’t have to be so salaciously traumatic. Every day presents a challenge. You don’t have to add any extraness to it. And every day is not only just a challenge, but every day is also fun in some way, shape, or form.”
Added Ellis: “I didn’t realize at the [beginning] how important a story like this was. It’s like, we don’t want to watch normal life—but once you get into it, you realize that’s important because we need to normalize these things because we don’t see them enough.”
Additionally, in a recent conversation with GQ, Ellis also spoke on the season five finale, adding that he hopes audiences find closure in each character finally feeling “secure in their insecurities.”
Ellis further explained:
My hope is that by the time we get to the finale, everyone sits back and looks at these characters and goes, ‘Oh, they found security in their insecurities.’ But to me, growth is the biggest thing. I feel like Lawrence was a kid who could barely match two socks when we met him, now he’s about to be taking care of another human. It shows how we, as people, are never going to be the same. There are things and people who come in and out of our lives for reasons. They’re going to challenge us, make us want to work harder, frustrate us, make us fall in love, and make us better—and if you just stick to your journey and always take a moment to be honest, I think you just gain so much more from it. I hope that’s the impression these characters ultimately leave on folks.
The final season of Insecure premieres Sunday, Oct. 24 on HBO.