When you look at the next episode of
Issa Rae’s new HBO sitcom

Insecure

(which has but to air, so lightweight spoilers forward), Issa’s best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji) calls Issa as much as share her very good news; she’s got finally been acknowledged to
the League
, the special dating software for “high-achieving” singles. Issa explains that Molly is actually finally seeing a man she really likes — plus, didn’t she state she was actually finished with matchmaking applications? Molly shrugs their off. “I mentioned I became through with shitty-ass matchmaking software,” she retorts, directed your man she is watching doesn’t even have a college degree. “I’ve been wishing like 3 months to obtain accepted with this. Today i will eventually date guys on my level.”

Insecure,

co-created by Rae and Larry Wilmore,


is actually HBO’s long-awaited
follow-up
to Issa Rae’s effective internet series

The Misadventures of Embarrassing Dark Girl


.

For the brand new tv show, Rae could be the titular “awkward” black colored girl navigating an average task at a nonprofit and an unsatisfying long-lasting union; Orji is actually the woman BFF Molly, an effective attorney still searching for best man. On the basis of the six attacks HBO delivered press, additionally it is one of the best shows about relationship and love since

Intercourse as well as the City

(minus the whimsical, over-the-top high quality that many times permeated Carrie’s Manolo-clad gallop through nyc dating world). And even though some other collection have addressed the digital rewiring in our enchanting everyday lives,

Insecure

is amongst the unusual shows to really have the all-consuming tradition of app-based internet dating baked into its narrative DNA.

Molly, in particular, shows the weird mental controlling act that accompanies
online dating in the electronic get older
, a multiple feeling of scarcity and lots: your supplies of qualified guys are easily depleting (she actually is crushed when she discovers her Asian colleague is actually engaged to a qualified black guy), while as well, it could be stupid to be in whenever Mr. Perfect could possibly be one click or swipe away (“You gotta bang many frogs receive a great frog,” she muses at some point. “It is a numbers online game”).

Insecure

explores what will happen when today’s, self-actualized job lady knocks against rigid tips about love and dating (even though those strict a few ideas tend to be her own). Molly is prosperous, gorgeous, and smart — as Issa points out in the pilot, she will be able to charm both grayscale people with equivalent ease — and it is frustrated with matchmaking the guys that happen to ben’t within her league. “because we’ve got expectations doesn’t mean we are challenging,” Molly proclaims at some point. However concurrently, we view the lady block a good connection because her spouse doesn’t meet her slim pair of requirements, while various other potential lovers tend to be warded off by her tendency to go too fast, the woman failure to try out the capricious games of contemporary love. (Although, indeed, why would she?)

The show

‘

s article writers are clearly well-acquainted with all the enchanting landscape the program portrays, making for most great throwaway jokes. In one single world, we have flashbacks to Molly’s numerous times from various online dating services, all of these have actually their unique unique personalities, from OKCupid (“free, but it is like bottom-of-the-barrel guys) to Tinder (“used to-be cool but it is fundamentally a fuck app”). However the tv show additionally captures the soul-destroying, round-robin top-notch internet dating in L.A., as repeatedly we watch Molly satisfy some body brand-new only to have the woman hope dashed. “He could possibly be different, you will never know,” Molly states at some point, revealing Issa a photograph of her most recent match, a hopeful sadness inside her sight.

The center of

Insecure

could be the union between Molly and Issa, both their unique intense love for example another as well as the complex options they are both envious and crucial of just one another’s schedules. Whenever Issa — ensconced in a lasting union aided by the underachieving Lawrence (Jay Ellis) —contemplates joining Tinder by herself, Molly chides her, “You ain’t about that app existence.” At another point, Lawrence means Molly is actually solitary because the woman criteria are way too high; subsequently, Issa shuts Lawrence down by recommending that her very own might-have-been too reasonable. While Molly continuously occurs too strong, Issa evades, prevents, and dissembles, deciding to hide rather than confront her union directly. Unlike Samantha, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte, Issa and Molly feel real females
in the place of archetypes
. And yet, inside their way, they capture both edges of this coin that’s the modern-dating predicament — the concept that no real matter what you do, you’re doing it completely wrong, deciding or offering yourself quick in some manner. The show offers no solutions, however it does suggest a powerful antidote: a pal good sufficient to stay with you through all of it.