Insecure‘s Yvonne Orji and L. Scott Caldwell Unpack the Molly/Mom Crisis
Warning: This post contains spoilers from Insecure Episode 5. Proceed at your own risk.
Confronting a parent’s mortality is never easy to do, but that’s what Molly found herself dealing with on Sunday night’s installment of Insecure.
HBO‘s popular rom-com opened with Molly getting her freak on with a new paramour named Cliff. After the steamy encounter ended, she realized her father and brothers had been blowing up her phone to tell her Carol, her mom, had a stroke.
Molly rushed to the hospital upon hearing the news and didn’t even have time to change out of her sexy black date dress. In an unexpected moment of levity, Carol’s frazzled doctor told Molly and her family they would have to say their goodbyes. Thankfully, it wasn’t Carol in the hospital bed — it was an elderly stranger.
Things got straightened out soon after, and Molly and her family learned Carol had an aggressive stroke. Later, Molly’s father David confessed it was her second.
They hadn’t told anyone about the first stroke because they didn’t want Molly and her brothers to worry. Making matters more stressful, Molly learned her parents had put neither their estate nor their will in order, despite her pleas.
“I just had a conversation with my parents about estate planning,” Yvonne Orji, who plays Molly, divulges to TVLine. “No one wants to have that conversation. But the sad reality is there are too many Black people who die without having their affairs in order and then the burden falls on their kids. Why do we have to wait until parents die? Set up something now even if your mom and dad ask, ‘Are you trying to kill us?’ You have to just tell them you want them to live forever, but you’re preparing for the future.”
Molly is also the most responsible one in her family, Orji says, and she knows it is up to her to make sure business is handled properly.
“She wants to make sure her mother and father are okay,” Orji adds. “But she also wants to ensure the family’s generational wealth continues. But just like on Black Twitter, anytime you address something serious, the first reaction is, ‘Who’s dying?’ This is not that show. This is more about having uncomfortable conversations when people are alive and well.”
L. Scott Caldwell, who costars as Carol, says the episode also re-establishes the Carters as Molly’s emotional touchstone.
“I’m somebody’s momma in a lot of stuff,” Caldwell admits matter-of-factly. “But what I love about playing Molly’s mom is their closeness and the shorthand they share. Of all the characters, Molly is the only one who has a mother and a father, who are still together, and are still very much a positive force in her life. But when her mom gets sick, that shakes Molly to the core and forces her to re-examine things and figure out what’s really important.”
What did you think of Insecure Episode 5 and are you worried about Molly and her mom? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
