Hello World,
Wow, the season opener for OWN’s Greenleaf was more explosive than the season finale ( click on this link to read the recap) with all of the family secrets revealed in this episode!
Well, let’s get into this Greenleaf recap cuz babay, it’s a lot to break down…
Burn Baby, Burn…
Like a good novel, the show starts off with an explosive beginning. The police show up at the Greenleaf estate and announce that the Bishop is under investigation for allegedly burning his first church building down years ago and manslaughter since someone died in the fire! Mac shows up at the same time as the police to gloat in front of the Greenleaf family who are stunned silent except for Gigi aka Grace. Grace follows her uncle as he is about to leave following the police’s announcement that Bishop needs a lawyer and cannot leave town. When she confronts him about his revelation as he is the one who revealed the Bishop’s sin to the police, he replies that he was “forced to pull less holy strings” since Bishop wouldn’t spring him from jail. He then tells her he has more hot secrets where that came from, secrets so hot that he can “walk away with nothing on his back but hot wind.” Yes, hunty…if he’s going down as a sexual offender, he’s burning down the Greenleafs with him!
I Been Drankin’…
Meanwhile, Oprah, I mean Mavis McCready, sister -in-law of Bishop Greenleaf, been drankin’ chile…(So, it’s hard to watch to Oprah in this state because I know I’m looking at the Queen of Talk aka the boss at OWN)…Well, now that she is no longer a club owner (thanks to her brother Mac….Wayment, I just realized that the names of the McCready family all start with M…Mac McCready, Mae (aka Lady Mae) McCready Greenleaf and Mavis McCready…M is for molestation, perhaps? More on that later…) she’s taken to the bottle. She wakes up with a big ole bottle of likka on her night stand…She’s also taken up with a young lover who comes in to the bedroom wearing some black briefs and a guitar hanging from his neck! It’s on a Sunday as she tells her boy toy, “Lonzo, get your behind (that’s not the word she uses though but I’m not cussing here) to church.” Bwwaaa, she sending her man to church like she’s his mama…and maybe she is…even though she will not be in anybody’s sanctuary for Sunday morning services…
Give Until It Hurts…
Pastor Grace is in the pulpit trying to get folk in the congregation to pledge money to support the church as a Fall Revival is coming up. But even Grace cannot get the flock to part with their funds so pledges are down by 40 percent! Lady Mae confronts her arch enemy, I mean her daughter, about her lackadaisical sermons as Grace must be the problem. But Grace tells her the truth and says it’s been three months since the police brought a case against Bishop and he hasn’t said a word about it yet to the congregation. That is the reason that the pledges are down. As usual, instead of receiving the truth, Lady Mae says to her daughter, “Your terrible pride is going to destroy us all.” What is she talking about? Would you continue to give to a church in which the pastor or bishop was brought up on charges but didn’t address the charges in front of the congregation?
Lady Mae does speak to her husband privately about the charges while she is getting ready for breakfast in the bathroom. She tells the Bishop, who walks in as she is applying her lipstick, that she cannot stop thinking about Darryl, the caretaker of the church who died in the fire. Bishop replies, “He wasn’t supposed to be there.” The two are a united front though because in front of the family at breakfast when Lady Mae sees Jacob reading a newspaper, she asks him if there is any “fresh libel” in it and says people love to see the “high brought low.” Also at breakfast, Bishop declares that he will preach again from the book of Ezra, a book about Jerusalem’s restoration and the building of the second temple following Babylonian exile. Chile…
Living Single…
Charity Greenleaf Satterlee meets with Carlton, the gay choir director at Calvary Fellowship World Ministries and his partner Kyle (Just Kidding! That’s the actor T.C. Carson’s name when he was on “Living Single,” one of my fave shows from the ’90s). Sadly, she tells them that her labor will be induced after she lost one of the twins she is carrying. She lost the baby due to the stress of discovering that her husband is gay or bisexual. Although she is still married to Kevin Satterlee, it’s clear she could end up living single this season as their marriage is still strained. After her meeting with Nigel and his partner, she meets with Jabari Johnson, a handsome record producer who is interested in producing Charity’s album. He tells her, “it sounds like you went through something. ” So could Jabari be Charity’s new man in the future?
Interrupting their meeting, Kevin says he wants to speak with his wife alone. He pleads with her to come to one of his meetings. She tells him she is skeptical about him attempting to “pray the gay away.” Obviously, he is attending meetings for a gay conversion therapy program.
Backstabbers…
Sleazy ole Pastor Basie Skanks is back and hosting a groundbreaking for the Christian community center he plans to build across the street from Calvary. And as we know from Season 1 of Greenleaf, Jacob is supposed to be running the center after it opens. Although the Greenleafs weren’t too happy with Joseph leaving Calvary for Triumph initially, they apparently got over it as Bishop, Grace, and Sofia show up for the groundbreaking. A concert is held on the site to celebrate the new center. Some slim, light-skinned gospel singer named Isaiah Hambrick has got Sofia in her feelings as she watches him perform. I guess I would have felt that way too at her age. He was spinning around on stage like he was Ricky Martin from Menudo. (Yes, I remember when…) After young Isaiah performs, Pastor Basie announces that a new community center will not be on the site after all. In fact, Triumph’s second location will be there, across the street from Calvary. Most importantly, Jacob will be the new pastor. Bishop and Grace stare at one another in disbelief! And then to demonstrate his Pastor Skanks’ increasing star power, The Kirk Franklin gets up and performs “123 Victory.” Victory, indeed…
Meanwhile, Mac, who is now on the sex offender registry as leaflets bearing his face and criminal status have been placed on car windshields in the church parking lot, approaches his sister Lady Mae. He tells her that in light of Bishop being investigated for arson and manslaughter, he is here for her. She says, “After what you did, we’ll never be family again.” Without hesitation, he replies “Until you need me.”
Across town, Mavis shows up at her old bar with her boy toy Alonzo, whose career she is ‘managing,’ in tow and demands a drink. But the bartender refuses to serve her as its clear she’s getting sloshed on the regular. In fact, Bishop shows up at the bar sometime later and helps her get home safely. She tells him she is trying to find her way after she lost her club. What happened to Alonzo? Bishop is obviously close to Mavis, but I don’t understand why. There is more there than being in-laws. Not a romantic connection mind you, but something…
Grace also finds out another reason the congregation aine coming off the coins anymore. Apparently, church members don’t like the fact that their choir director is married to another man and flaunting it around the church, according to Betty Wilcox, who is on the board. Grace also confronts her father about the allegations. “Did you do it Daddy?” Although he has been silent for three months about the accusations with everyone except for Lady Mae, he finally tells his daughter the truth. He tells her that when he was a young pastor, he bought an old church building that turned into a money pit. So when Mac asked him if he wanted Mac to handle it, he agreed. Obviously, Bishop wanted to get the insurance money after the building burned down. The caretaker Darryl James wasn’t supposed to be in the basement of the church and he died in the fire. And Bishop also tells Grace that he will return to church to preach on Sunday. “I don’t preach perfection. I preach grace.” I guess the Bishop must not know Romans 6:1-2. “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?“
Kiss of Death…
Leave it to Lady Mae to save the day when God isn’t working fast enough for the Greenleafs! She goes to see her father who is in hospice care when she wouldn’t even allow the McCready patriarch onto Calvary grounds on Season 1 of Greenleaf! She puts on the charm like it’s her Sunday best and speaks sweetly to him. He tells her, “You always so sweet” and calls her his “yellow, Daisy Mae” before he plants his lips on hers. Yes, he kissed his daughter which makes me think that the McCready family may be keeping yet another secret. Did he molest Mae as a child? I’m thinking that may be the case when Mavis shows at the Greenleaf estate and busts into a party celebrating the birth of Charity and Kevin’s son. Apparently, she’s fighting mad since Alonzo has moved on after the Bishop had a talk with him. During her rant, she reveals that she and Mae have different mothers. Mae’s mother beat Mavis, and she was forced to sleep in a shed…kinda explains her current outside status…Also, Mavis says that Mae was their father’s favorite and accompanied him on trips to Nashville.
Despite the commotion in the Greenleaf estate, the Bishop is feeling pretty good after he learns that the DA is dropping the charges against him. Apparently, Lady Mae’s father is now refusing to testify against the Bishop. But Lady Mae has another fire to put out as Jacob reveals that he is moving out.
Revelation…
After Bishop preaches on Sunday, Pastor Basie Skanks shows up in his office. “It must be nice going from straight from the prison to the pulpit without skipping a beat,” he tells him. Although Bishop doesn’t like Pastor per se, he doesn’t understand the pastor’s utter contempt for him until he reveals that he is the son of Darryl James, the caretaker who was killed in the fire!!! He tell him, “By the time I’m done with you, the only thing that’s going to rise to heaven from this church is smoke!”
Ooh whee! This is going to be good!
Below is a video about what we can expect in Season 2 of OWN’s “Greenleaf,” which airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. EST on OWN.
Let me know how you liked this Greenleaf recap in the comments, please and thank you 🙂
Any thoughts?
