The tides completely turned on last night’s episode of Being Mary Jane.
All the work Mary Jane Paul (Gabrielle Union) put into her professional and personal life was tested with the supreme court justice nominee interview she scored and meeting her boyfriend’s two kids for the first time.
The episode begins with her on the phone with Justin (Michael Ealy) the haughty producer, who isn’t confident that MJ will give a hard-hitting interview. Testing her on facts about judge McCallister, she’s still confident in having a good sit-down, despite Justin’s mania.
When MJ goes into work, she finds that someone (turns out to be an executive at the network) has leaked news of a beef between her and fellow Black woman anchor, Ronda Sales (Valerie Pettiford). Surprisingly, MJ and Kara (Lisa Vidal) brush it off because there’s bigger fish to be fried— particularly this tea Justin has on judge McCallister.
Turns out, a mystery source told Justin that the judge has sent innocent Black men to jail because he’s racist, “I expect you to eviscerate him,” Justin tells an uneasy MJ.
“Talk to him, not at him!” he adds. “You need to develop your own style otherwise you’ll always be a cheap knockoff of Ronda’s.”
Kind of hard to do when 1) MJ doesn’t trust anything that comes out of Justin’s mouth 2) Justin’s source conveniently wants to remain anonymous.
MJ’s plan is to not accuse the judge, but simply create doubt concerning his racially-biased rulings. And she does this on-camera, angering the judge, his wife and fake-nice Ronda, who managed to cozy up to them from the minute they entered the building. The second half of the interview concludes with Ronda and Mrs. McCallister joining the conversation to talk light about grandchildren.
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Speaking of kids, MJ’s meet-and-greet with Lee’s (Chiké Okonkwo) kids gets off to a great start. They all enjoy a dip in the luxury hotel’s (still MJ’s home) pool, after Lee’s daughter concludes that MJ is “richer” than her dad. But when MJ runs upstairs to get juice for the kids she finds his son masturbating to her panties.
Yea…
Like the class act she is, MJ tells Lee who is mortified. But by the grace of God, somehow the entire situation is smoothed over by Lee talking to his son. “I told him he was objectifying you,” Lee says about the awkward moment. He also explains that teenage boys jack-off to everything, she’s not “special”, and that once the kids see them together more often, they’ll get used to her as a mother figure. And before the episode ends, it appears so.
Lee, FTW, once again.
But romance is not so great for MJ’s little brother PJ (B.J. Britt), who sees his college crush while at dinner with colleagues. The pair link up and agree to go out for drinks. The budding actress agrees and they enjoy champagne the next night, right before the 22-year-old daughter of PJ’s boss shows up randomly like a jealous ex.
She attempts to cramp his style but then suggests he use her mother’s home to impress the college crush. Clearly, PJ hasn’t seen Get Out.
Like a fool, he takes the bait. PJ and homegirl enjoy a romp in the Midtown apartment. But when he notices his Rolex watch is missing, he blames the college sweetheart… and in the exact moment of accusing her realizes his boss’s (now seemingly obsessed) daughter took the watch as a joke.
He confronts the girl, tells her to drop the stalker act, and walks away. Meaning: Get used to a reoccurring Becky problem.
Later, Garrett (Ashton Holmes) meets with Justin, MJ, Kara and Ronda to find out what happened during the interview. Angered by the fiasco, Garrett now instructs Ronda and Kara to re-do the interview —luckily it wasn’t live— and wants the name of their source. Justin refuses. Garrett ends the episode by insisting the source is revealed or else.
The “or else,” shall hopefully be answered next week.
