Harlem is most interesting when the easy assumptions of righteousness are complicated: when Camille learns the gentrifying bistro she’s protesting (only to impress her new boss, played by Whoopi Goldberg, who’s disdainful of Camille’s social media fame) has hired Ian as its head chef. There’s something to mine in the “real life man shortage”, but the points dovetail into an awkward comparison to a tribe of women in Asia studied by Camille, and literal “yassss queen”-ing. Lepley and Good’s chemistry is more than sufficient to root for a reunion that would definitely cause a lot of problems for a lot of people, most notably his British fiancee.īut the show sometimes feels stumped by what to do beyond calling out its representational politics. The show can be enjoyable – the quartet’s chemistry infectious, the twists intriguing if sometimes overdone, the numerous men reliably hot, the soundtrack hip and the outfits never boring.
Over the course of the season, the group navigates universal tribulations – dating, career setbacks, miscommunications – and neighborhood-specific ones: the gentrification of Harlem, the limited availability of single Black men, the fraught dynamics of interracial dating in a mostly Black neighborhood. Quinn financially supports Angela (newcomer Shoniqua Shandai), attempting to relaunch her singing career after getting dropped from a record deal five years ago like Insecure’s much-memed Kelli, Angie is bigger, louder, more brash than her friends – perpetually horny, perpetually searching, the raunchy and gloriously self-confident deliverer of punchlines with comparatively less character development. Quinn (Empire’s Grace Byers) struggles to keep her sustainable fashion line afloat, going to great lengths to find a man and to avoid asking her wealthy, derisive mother (Jasmine Guy) for more money like Insecure’s Tiffany, she’s the type-A fashionista of the bunch, whose exacting standards and desperation (going to Long Island for a disastrous 11pm date, in one episode-long punchline) offer ridiculous contrast to her friends. Tye (Jerrie Johnson) is the most financially secure of the bunch, the masc lesbian founder of a dating app for queer people of color whose icy exterior shields an intense aversion to vulnerability.
Camille (Meagan Good) is beautiful, headstrong yet chronically awkward, an assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia hungry for a tenured position, validation and another shot with her ex, Ian ( P Valley’s Tyler Lepley), who unexpectedly returns to the neighborhood after several years abroad. The show’s quartet, like the group on Insecure, are best friends from their college days (swap Stanford for NYU), 10-plus years ago. But with characters whose bits wear thin, punchlines that frequently boil down to horniness and explanations of racist dynamics that feel pulled from an Instagram slideshow, Harlem often tests the limits of representation as justification.
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Which is not to say Harlem is simply a reset of Insecure in New York the half-hour series is an easy, sometimes fun and occasionally intriguing watch that treads the still undervalued ground of single women in their 30s. Insecure echoes in the dynamics of the Harlem group: the self-involved but endearing protagonist, the careerist afraid of being vulnerable, the neurotic romantic, the ribald and unapologetic fount of comic relief. But it’s hard not to map one on to the other, from buzzy soundtrack to stylish wardrobes to similar themes – the lingering question of an ex who’s maybe or maybe not moved on, dating apps, annoying white people, parental pressure.
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