Things officially hit the fan in the penultimate episode of Insecure’s final season. Just when Issa (Issa Rae) seems semi-ready to embark on a future with her barber boyfriend Nathan (Kendrick Sampson), Lawrence (Jay Ellis)—Issa’s on-and-off again ex—pops up again and lays it all out on the line before getting into a heated shoving match with Nathan.
Lawrence has a lot to lose, too. He’s a new father to son Elijah, and has finally reached a hospitable co-parenting situation with Condola (Christina Elmore) after struggling all season to get on the same page. With one episode left of Rae’s groundbreaking Insecure, it looks there’s only one more question to answer: who is Issa going to choose, Nathan or Lawrence?
“He’s fighting for love, literally and figuratively,” Ellis says of Lawrence. In a phone interview, the star talked about his showdown with Nathan, his undying love for #LawrenceHive, and how Lawrence wasn’t even supposed to make it past season one.
Vanity Fair: In this episode, Lawrence finally steps up and fights for Issa. What was your reaction when you first got that script, and you saw Lawrence was really going for it?
Jay Ellis: I remember reading and thinking, ‘Oh shit. Finally Lawrence vs. Nathan. This is the showdown.’ I also look at it and go, man, [Lawrence] and Condola are in such a great place with Elijah, which is so cool to see that growth from episode three to where they are now. Lawrence is at this place where he’s back in LA, and I think it feels like a lot of pieces in his life are clicking—and this is the one thing that’s not. It’s Issa. Finding a way to get her back and at least talk to her and tell her where he’s at now.
After a lot of trial and error, especially on Lawrence’s part, it feels like Lawrence and Condola have finally reached a really good co-parenting spot.
I look back at episode 503, and I think there’s something that happened on that flight where [Lawrence] just goes, “if this plane would’ve gone down, this is not how I want to be remembered. It’s not how I would want the mother of my child to remember me.” I think he realized that he can do better and he should do better. You get to see this full circle moment with him and Condola and Elijah and it’s beautiful. It is this amazing co-parenting thing where, like, I respect you and love you as the mother of my child. She obviously feels the same about Lawrence, and there’s this adoration and this respect. They’re gonna make Elijah’s life the best possible thing that it could be.
He’s also at this place where he can realize that while Condola is the mother of his child, he still sees the woman that he’s in love with, that is his soulmate, and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with in Issa. I think he handles it as best he possibly can, until Nathan walks up and enters the conversation.
That first conversation between Nathan and Lawrence about barbecue was extremely fraught and underscored each man’s relationship to Issa.
It’s funny to see how neither one of them wanted to take direct shots at each other. Lawrence obviously was gonna find a way to dig a knife in just a little bit. I love how they are very clearly stating how they feel about this woman and how they love her, but using barbecue as a way to talk about it. Which feels like the most straight dude thing you can possibly do [laughs], talk about some barbecue and compare that to, like, the love of your life.
For a minute, it felt like Issa and Lawrence were really done, but recent episodes have shown that he is still sticking around in her subconscious. She’s still thinking about you.
She can’t get rid of them. I think that’s for good. I mean, we’ll obviously see how the finale plays out, but I think as much as she wants to move on—and I do think she’s happy with Nathan in a lot of ways—I think there’s still so many unanswered questions about what the relationship with Lawrence could have been. If you go back to the end of season four, they were at such a high in that moment. They were two people who unconditionally loved each other and were able to recognize the past and acknowledge the past. I think they never really got to explore what moving past that was, so I do think that’s why Lawrence is still on Issa’s.