Hello World,
My new favorite family megachurch drama Greenleaf (is there another family megachurch drama?) on OWN did not fail to disappoint in this fourth episode!
Black Lives Matter vs. Back The Blue…
The writers of this episode obviously drew from the ongoing war being waged between the Black Lives Matter movement and the boys in blue. In the opening scene, Deputy Mayor Baldwin Leonard comes to see Calvary Fellowship World Ministries’ Bishop James Greenleaf privately in his office to ask for his public support of Officer David Nelson, a Memphis police officer who mistakenly shot an unarmed black teenager Kenny Collins to death. The deputy mayor’s initiative is called “Back the Blue.” Bishop Greenleaf is obviously conflicted about lending his support to such a controversial matter but becomes convinced when the deputy mayor tells him that he will be able to get the rights to additional land to build a pool and community center when the church’s original attempt to acquire the land was halted. Bishop Greenleaf remarks that another pastor in town doesn’t have a pool! After the meeting, Bishop Greenleaf wastes no time in telling his daughter Grace that he would like to meet with Officer Nelson. Grace is surprised by his sudden change of heart in meeting the officer when he had previously shown no interest in meeting with Officer Nelson when she originally approached him about it. I’m not sure if Grace truly knows her father, but the good Bishop always seems to have an ulterior motive for whatever he does…
A Marriage of Convenience…
Inspired by the love story of the two deacons at Calvary Fellowship, Kerissa feels like her marriage is dead and drags Jacob into counseling although he told he doesn’t want to go. When the counselor asks Jacob why he is there when his body language and silence show that he doesn’t want to be, he replies, “She would have made my life a living hell if I didn’t come.” I hate to say this since I love the fact that Kerissa is rocking a short natural do. But she looks more like his stiff, suited up older sister than his wife. Anywho, Kerissa admits that she knows her husband is a serial cheater and that he knows that she knows and that he doesn’t seem to care. Jacob doesn’t say anything when the counselor asks him about Kerissa’s statements and she rightly assumes his lack of a denial confirms Kerissa is right. In another counseling session, rather than try to coax her husband into speaking, she chides him and says, “It’s like being married to a six year old” which further emasculates Jacob whom already feels like Kerissa run things…
However, in the next scene, when Jacob, who is wearing a crucifix chain, is laid up with his white and more feminine mistress Alexa, Bishop’s assistant, he cannot stop talking and seems like he doesn’t want to leave. In fact, Alexa has to tell him to go home.
Bishop James Greenleaf vs. Lady Mae Greenleaf…
When the Bishop tells his wife that he is going to offer his public support of Officer Nelson, she is shocked which shocked me because she seems just as much of an opportunist as the Bishop seems to be. He tells her that she should be objective and see both sides of the situation. She counters that the deacon board will not be pleased that he made such a controversial decision without consulting them to which he replies, “The deacon board doesn’t run the church, God does.” And Lady Mae shuts him down with these words. “You’re not in the mood to listen to Him either.” Game. Set. Match. (Incidentally, my mom is named May and is also a First Lady!)
Another face-off about Officer David Nelson happens when Grace tells her daughter Sophia she cannot attend a Black Lives Matter rally in support of Kenny Collins the slain teenager. Then Sophia tells her mother to “shut my door, please” in an indignant tone that would have gotten me slapped across the room had I used it with my mother as a teenager.
Lost Faith…
Speaking of Grace, she learns just how lost her sister was before she committed suicide. Noah Kendall, the leader of the security team for Greenleafs and Grace’s teenage boyfriend, tells her that a random man who had been lurking around the Greenleaf estate left a flash drive with something on it that she needs to see. When she inserts the flash drive on her computer, she is stunned by photographs of her deceased sister in her underwear in all kinds of poses and caught in sexual acts. She calls the random man and offers him $5,000, what he requested, to meet with her to discuss the photographs and prevent them from being exposed. He agrees to meet with her, and she meets him in the woods. When Grace asks the man why her sister allowed these photographs to be taken, he replies that she “would do anything to get high.” The man, who looks like a jittery junkie himself, also tells Grace that if you looked in Faith’s eyes, “nothing was there.” He then runs off with $500 rather than than the $5,000 as that is all the money Grace would give to him.
A Life for a Life…
Obviously still grieving the loss of her daughter Faith, Lady Mae looks through a photo album and stares at photographs of her daughter when she was an innocent little girl. Charity interrupts her reminiscing to tell her some good news. She tells her she is pregnant to which Lady Mae responds with, “That’s wonderful” and hugs her daughter. However, she continues to look at a photograph of Faith held behind Charity’s back as she hugs her. It seems that Charity’s baby may be a welcomed replacement for her dead daughter.
Don’t Mess With the Deacons…
When the Bishop’s plan to invite the city’s police officers to come to a church service as a way to publicly demonstrate his support finally gets back to the deacons, they are properly incensed! Deaconess Connie Sykes, backed up by the rest of the deacons, confronts the Bishop in a conference room. She explains to him that the deacons are supposed to operate in a system of “checks and balances.” Then she says, “You seem to be only interested in the checks.” She called it right! Finally, she says that if he goes through with the service, she and the rest of the deacons will be forced to walk out of the service in a public demonstration of their lack of support for the boys in blue.
Smells Like Teen Spirit…
Zora, Jacob and Kerissa’s undercover druggie daughter, convinces her cousin Sophia to defy her mother and go to the Black Lives Matter rally anyway. While there, they are spotted by the Bishop who seems to have attended the rally to get a better understanding of all of the issues surrounding the unarmed teenager being shot and killed by Officer Nelson. The bishop promptly takes his granddaughters back home where he promises he will not tell their parents on them. In a tender moment that made me miss my grandparents, he hugs them tight to him and they respond in kind.
Touch My Body…
Although Jacob is almost completely mute in the counseling sessions, it seems that he is listening because he is learning to process his feelings. He tells his mistress about an incident at Macy’s where he was followed around by a security guard and simultaneously ogled by a sales associate. The incident makes me feel like he is simply a body and the fact that his mistress seems to be content just sexing him without fighting to be with him further solidifies his belief that he is a body being merely used, he explains to her. So when Kerissa says they can stop going to counseling because he isn’t into it, he asserts himself and says that he will continue to go. Good for him…We are all cray cray in some ways…
Back the Blue Goes to Church…
Bishop tells his church essentially that all lives matter as he invites members of the church to support members of the Memphis Police Department many of which including Officer Nelson are in the audience in the Sunday church service. Charity leads the choir in singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” but Deaconess Sykes follows through on her threat as she leads the deacons in marching right out of the church in the midst of the hoopla!
Out of the blue, Bishop Greenleaf tells the deputy mayor in another closed door meeting in his office after the church service that he doesn’t want the land after all. Instead he tells the deputy mayor that the city needs to better control the police department. “Kill fewer of our children,” he says.
Meanwhile, Grace helps another pastor in the church get an office. I don’t know what it means, but since it was among the final scenes of the episode, I’m sure more will be revealed in future episodes…
I can’t wait to see what happens next week!
So how did you like my Greenleaf recap?
Any thoughts?
