1). No I wasn’t surprised. Probably because the actor was in Hamilton and sang so it wasn’t a big reveal.
2). Nola said it herself. It represented her pain as a black woman living in today’s society and also highlights the modern day lynching that black people endure.
Nola is spoiled and lazy and just needs to be an Instragram “influencer” instead of trying to come of righteous when it fits her timeline.
Show should be called “It Take a Village” because everyone has a hand in making sure she’s a whole person even tho she’s an adult. Opal is her lover and mommy, Jamie is the benefactor, Mars is the childlike sibling type, Clorinda is too good of a friend who she shyts on, her parents are the safety net, her landlord is a mother figure who won’t throw her out, Greer is the gay homie who isn’t out of the closet yet, Raqueletta Moss is the big sister who comes off like a disciplinarian but puts up with her fukkery.
And Nola is literally fukking at least 4 of these people LOL
Meanwhile, Opal’s own daughter had to son her for being about that thot life, a message which may or may not have sunk in.
At the end of the day, hey, it’s her life and she can live it how she wants to live it but like Opal said at Coney Island, “you are MESSY”. When the wife of the dude you’re fukking pulls up on you outside of a school, then you gotta move differently. It was 18 months later and Jamie’s wife was just was pissed as if she caught them a day earlier.