Whew...we made to to the Season 1 finale and the ladies are still all (kinda) talking to one another. This week attempted to wrap everyone's individual plot points into a nice bow, but then provided epilogues and a sneak peek of a reunion that undoes that neat little bow. The main story this week was that Gizelle organized a "Come to Jesus Lunch" so that the ladies could all come together and talk out their issues. No one was excited to attend. In particular, it was designed for Karen to get over her beef with Ashley, and for Gizelle and Robyn to rehash the butt-grabbing incident and complain about the fact that they were called "biracial". Oh and Katie got engaged, but no one really cares and also it looks like that doesn't last long. We begin with Robyn and Gizelle taking some of their (unenthusiastic) children horseback riding and complaining about a lack of knowledge of black history.
Robyn- "I've seen black kids who grew up with money...and they don't really know who they are...And honestly when Katie and Ashley called us biracial, I'm like, you don't know our history."
Gizelle- "We might need to teach Ashley and Katie a little something about their history."
Well that seems like it's gonna go over well, given that last time they tried to have this conversation, Katie told them to get their geneologies checked.
Katie may have a point that Gizelle is being unfair about her being biracial. When discussing how her father will be honored by Congress for his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, Gizelle basically implies that being biracial means you can't have been part of The Struggle.
Gizelle- "My family has gone through blood sweat and tears to make sure I can live where I wanna live...so that's why when Katie calls me biracial, I take offense to it".
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In addition to Gizelle's total invalidation of biracial people as black and/or participating in the Civil Rights movement, this episode also gives us the trope of childless women as less than "real women".
Karen to Ashley- "Until you become a woman, a real women, a mother, do not ever put my child's name in your mouth again."
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These women may be smart and wealthy and powerful, but clearly they need to take Sociology 101 and stop with some of this crap. Getting back to the racial issue at hand...
Katie- "Why don't you like look into your own family history? Because you bring up race all the time. It's stupid, it's offensive to me that you think that I'm not a black woman".
Gizelle- "You told me you weren't"
Katie- "I'm a black woman and I never said that I wasn't. I'm not just African American I'm also Caucasian. I'm biracial. What the hell is wrong with that?"
Gizelle- "There's nothing wrong with that...you acted like it was a problem to be black"
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Katie and Gizelle and both right and both wrong here, but it doesn't seem like they're really going to see eye to eye. Katie has done some things that have given the impression that she's less than black and proud, but Gizelle clearly isn't giving Katie the space to define what blackness means to her.
Charrisse is all peace love and understanding, and the ladies quickly make up just in time for the crab cake to arrive. The issues may be buried in a shallow grave for now, but one Come to Jesus Lunch can't fix the level of shade that these women have been throwing at each other all season.
Linguistic Observations
Karen clearly speaks ALL the AAE when she's having that fight with Ashley, and it's really surprising to hear that coming from her. Mama Karen seems to be a proficient code-switcher, but it's interesting that they seem to only show her (and Gizelle) really using grammatical features of AAE when they're doing stereotypical black lady things. You know, like being angry.
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Random Unrelated THOTs
Judging from the reunion promo, everything that seems settled between the ladies quickly comes back up again, including the same damn issue of who's black and who's biracial. Come back next week and see what we learn from the ladies after they've gotten a little distance from the cameras.
