Within the next episode of
Issa Rae’s new HBO sitcom

Insecure

(which includes yet to atmosphere, so mild spoilers forward), Issa’s companion Molly (Yvonne Orji) phone calls Issa to share her good news; she’s got ultimately been accepted to
the League
, the exclusive dating application for „high-achieving” singles. Issa points out that Molly is actually at long last seeing a man she likes — plus, failed to she state she had been through with online dating programs? Molly shrugs her off. „I said I found myself done with shitty-ass matchmaking software,” she retorts, pointing on the guy she is seeing doesn’t even have a college level. „i have been waiting like three months receive approved with this. Today I am able to eventually date dudes on my degree.”

Insecure,

co-created by Rae and Larry Wilmore,


is actually HBO’s long-awaited
followup
to Issa Rae’s effective web series

The Misadventures of Embarrassing Black Girl


.

Within the brand-new program, Rae is the titular „awkward” black colored woman navigating a mediocre job at a nonprofit and an unsatisfying long-term union; Orji is the woman BFF Molly, a successful lawyer nonetheless trying to find just the right man. On the basis of the six periods HBO delivered press, additionally, it is one of the better shows about friendship and love since

Sex and City

(without whimsical, over-the-top quality that so frequently permeated Carrie’s Manolo-clad gallop through the New York dating scene). And while various other collection have actually resolved the digital rewiring in our passionate life,

Insecure

is amongst the uncommon shows to own all-consuming society of app-based online dating baked into its narrative DNA.

Molly, particularly, demonstrates the strange psychological balancing act that accompanies
online dating into the electronic get older
, a simultaneous feeling of scarcity and plenty: that supplies of eligible the male is easily depleting (she actually is crushed when she discovers the woman Asian co-worker is involved to a qualified black guy), while likewise, it would be silly to stay whenever Mr. Ideal maybe just one single mouse click or swipe away („You gotta shag a lot of frogs attain an effective frog,” she muses at one-point. „It is a numbers game”).

Insecure

explores what will happen when a modern, self-actualized career girl knocks up against stiff some ideas about really love and internet dating (even though those firm ideas tend to be her own). Molly works, stunning, and smart — as Issa points out in pilot, she will be able to allure both monochrome people who have equal simplicity — and is also sick and tired of dating the inventors thatn’t within her league. „simply because we’ve expectations does not always mean we are difficult,” Molly proclaims at some point. Yet on top of that, we observe their cut-off a good connection because the woman lover does not meet the woman thin pair of specs, while additional prospective lovers tend to be warded off by her habit of go too fast, the woman incapacity to experience the capricious video games of contemporary love. (Although, indeed, why must she?)

The program

‘

s writers are clearly well-acquainted making use of the intimate landscape the tv show portrays, creating for some fantastic throwaway laughs. In one scene, we become flashbacks to Molly’s various times from various online dating services, all of these have actually their particular unique characters, from OKCupid („free, but it’s like bottom-of-the-barrel guys) to Tinder („used as cool but it’s generally a fuck app”). Although program in addition captures the soul-destroying, round-robin quality of internet dating in L.A., as time and time again we watch Molly meet somebody new merely to have the woman hope dashed. „the guy maybe different, you will never know,” Molly states at some point, revealing Issa an image of her newest match, a hopeful depression inside her eyes.

The heart of

Insecure

is the connection between Molly and Issa, both their particular intensive love for one another and also the intricate options both are envious and important of a single another’s physical lives. Whenever Issa — ensconced in a lasting relationship making use of underachieving Lawrence (Jay Ellis) —contemplates signing up for Tinder by herself, Molly chides this lady, „You is not about that app life.” At another point, Lawrence indicates Molly is solitary because her requirements are too large; in turn, Issa shuts Lawrence down by suggesting that her very own might have been also reasonable. While Molly constantly happens too powerful, Issa evades, avoids, and dissembles, choosing to cover rather than confront her connection directly. Unlike Samantha, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte, Issa and Molly feel just like real females
in the place of archetypes
. However, within their way, they capture the 2 sides of this coin that’s the modern-dating predicament — the idea that regardless of what you will do, you are doing it incorrect, settling or attempting to sell yourself small one way or another. The show supplies no solutions, however it does recommend a powerful antidote: a pal solid enough to stick with you through it all.