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Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 10: Call Not Complete…

Hello World,

Whew! Part 2 of the Mid-Season Premiere packed a wallop, didn’t it? I won’t dillydally anymore. Let’s just dive into this OWN’s “Greenleaf”  Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 10!

Call Me Maybe…

This episode begins and ends with a call. Lady Mae calls her estranged sister Mavis to invite her to their brother Mac’s memorial service of sorts to be held on Moss Lake at sunset on Saturday. Mavis doesn’t answer the call so Lady Mae must leave this information in her sister’s voicemail. In addition to describing the logistics of the service, she tells her sister that this may be a new beginning for everyone. Mavis may or may not call her sister back.

Grace and Darius seem to be moving right along with their new relationship as she sleeps over at his place although they don’t sleep in the same bed. I should hope not, Pastor. Although she is the associate pastor of Calvary, Grace does opt to skip Sunday morning service. Darius tells Grace that he is considering a job offer in New York, particularly since they agreed that he won’t write about Grace even though her murdering the Man of the Year is the hottest story in town.  In every episode since Season 2 began, Grace seems to be drifting farther and farther away from her calling to preach. Was she really called in the first place? Maybe…(Aside: Her bruises healed fast, right?)

Jacob believes he has been called to preach outside on his land to people without the burden of a building. He tells the small gathering, “I asked God what should I do?” particularly since he has no money. He says the Lord said to him, “You know what to do.” “He told me to feed my word to my sheep.” So Jacob preaches a word and then hands out food to the people with his supportive wife and beautiful children at his side. Of course, Jacob’s open-air preaching does not go unnoticed by the other Greenleafs across the street. Lady Mae tells Jacob. “The two of you didn’t learn anything from your season with Basie.” (Where is Basie, pray tell?) Bishop is plainspoken with his criticism, telling his son he is following in Basie’s footsteps all the way to hell! If you can’t say, “Amen,” say “Ouch!”

Sophia seems to be fulfilling her calling at the children’s church as she demonstrates the permanence of God’s love with a candle atop a cupcake that won’t blow out no matter how many times you blow on it. The children squeal in delight! Oh to be a child again when all was solved with a cupcake and a candle!

Although Charity is the baby of the Greenleaf siblings, she is definitely grown as her ex-husband has vanished like a ghost! It looks like Kevin told her that he is gone for good in that note from last night’s episode! Lady Mae asks Charity to get in touch with Kevin and find out what’s going on with him. She calls him and leaves a message. “It’s the person who you called your best friend.”

Like her cousin, Zora has a calling of sorts as she helps her father set up a website in the style of a Go Fund Me page where they solicit donations to support the ministry. Despite her support of her father, she hasn’t completely left Basie and the Triumph church behind. Sophia and her boyfriend Roberto along with Zora and one of Roberto’s friends go bowling. Obviously, Sophia and Roberto hope his friend can lure Zora away from Isaiah but Zora doesn’t seem to be feeling Roberto’s friend as she gives him the bland face the entire time they interact at the bowling alley.

Your Body’s Callin’…

Bishop asks his bride out to lunch and tells her, “What a pleasure it it to have you as  partner this life.” How sweet! Lady Mae agrees to have lunch her holy hubby who is planning a seven-part series “From the Pit to the Palace.” I wonder who was in the pit and who is now in the palace…Anywho, he is considering turning the series into a book. But his plans to have an intimate lunch with Lady Mae are shelved when a major donor, a Ms. Rochelle Cross (LeToya Luckett) wants to have lunch with Bishop and his wife. He asks his wife if she doesn’t mind a “threesome.” Lady Mae opts to bow out of the lunch as she is not feeling up to meeting someone new but encourages her husband to meet with the woman without her if the woman’s check has cleared the bank.

Charity approaches Aaron about hiring a private investigator to find Kevin. Before Aaron obliges though, he leaves yet another message on Kevin’s voicemail telling him that Charity is looking for him and lets him know that if he wants to remain hidden, he doesn’t have to tell anyone where Kevin has found himself. Where do you think Kevin has gone?

Obviously Bishop has not met this mysterious Ms. Cross before and automatically notices her leopard booties and bare legs. I love her pixie cut! I’m not sure why Ms. Cross made such a sizable donation to Calvary but apparently she was once a member of a Gethsemane Baptist Church. Is that the name of the church that Bishop burned down where Basie’s father the caretaker apparently died? Remember Bishop didn’t think the caretaker had a son. He remembered that the caretaker had a daughter…Could she be the caretaker’s daughter and ready to get revenge? As a major donor to the church, Bishop offers her a membership in the Bishop’s roundtable which comes with access to the church jet apparently…Okay…But Ms. Cross says the only access to a roundtable that she needs is the roundtable where she and Bishop are meeting. I guess that mean’s she wants private access to the man. With that, Bishop takes out his handkerchief and wipes moist droplets of sweat from his face. “Check please,” are his final words.

Instead of meeting in a restaurant, Grace and Charity take a trip over to the parsonage to have dinner with their brother and his wife Kerissa. Although Grace missed church on Sunday, she heard that her brother is forming a church across the street. Although it is not a building, the most important part of a church, the bodies, are making his endeavor hard to ignore. In addition, the three Greenleaf siblings haven’t spent time together apart from their parents in a while and they need to catch up with each other.

Almost immediately, Jacob and Kerissa ask Charity about Kevin and why did the two of them break up. For the first time since Kevin and Charity’s marriage began to deteriorate, Charity admits the exact reason why. “Kevin is gay,” she says before she starts laughing. What a weird reaction. And then Jacob starts laughing. But at the same time, I understand. Sometimes, a situation is so painful and startling that you just have to laugh or you will cry. She also explains that Kevin doesn’t want to be gay and maybe that is why he has disappeared.

Now that the ice has been broken, Grace can get into the ultimate reason why she wanted to meet with her brother. “I want to get a sense of how committed you are to this street corner preaching.” She further explains, “it was a crazy idea when Basie had it.” Obviously, Jacob and Kerissa are offended. Kerissa says, “Do you think you are only person who God talks to?” But then Grace offers to let Jacob have her job as associate pastor and challenges him to be there for the family since Bishop is sick. “You cannot desert the family.” “Like you did,” Kerissa responds. “Somebody is needed to manage things,” Grace continues.  Jacob says he likes the freedom of not having to worry about raising money for upholstery and paint, etc. Grace tells them she is thinking about moving to New York since her views don’t seem to fit in with the church’s views. Please, she just wants to be with her new man.

Call Him Up…

When Bishop returns to the estate, he finds Lady Mae in their red living room. She tells him, “I’m waiting for the Lord to guide me to the right scripture for Saturday.”

As Grace and Charity come into the family home, she calls out Grace for her hypocrisy as she was gone for 20 years until recently. “You want to accuse Jacob of deserting the family?”  She continues, “We put in our time so it’s your turn now.”

Zora and her father take a look at his website and discover that donors have contributed roughly $3,100 to the ministry. Jacob wants to use the money to buy food for the people, and Zora tells her father she is proud of him. But Kerissa suggests the money be used to create a building fund and does not seem as committed to Jacob’s ministry calling as she did at the beginning of the episode. “Not unless the Lord wants me to build,” he says. It seems that Jacob is content to have a simple ministry but maybe Kerissa feels that his outreach should be a stepping stone to a larger ministry like the one across the street…

Later, Aaron approaches Lady Mae in her office and tell her that he must leave Calvary. She tries to convince him to say. In the end, she accepts his resignation. “Would you give your father my fondest regards.” I’m guessing the only way that Kevin will come back is if Aaron goes.

Grace decides to tell the whole story of what happened in her fight with Mac to Darius and says he can write about it he chooses to do so. Darius has something to tell her as well. He is not taking the job in New York.  To me, if you are called to do something, you must be willing to make sacrifices for the calling. Obviously, at least for right now, Grace and Darius are called to be together. They kiss…And just maybe Grace is still called to Calvary although she needs to call Jesus and get some direction from Him and Him alone…

In the final scene, the family meets on a rock in the middle of a creek (not a lake) for their memorial service for Mac. Surprisingly, Grace shows up and even releases a tear as Mac’s ashes are released into the water. Mavis doesn’t show up though and it doesn’t seem like she even acknowledged her sister’s message. More will be revealed I know…

Thank you sooo much for reading my Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 10 and my other recaps so far.

If you would like to keep up with OWN’s “Greenleaf,” and my recaps, please click on this link to subscribe to my blog 🙂!

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Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 9: The Bear…

Hello World,

Clutch your Bibles to your bosoms, the Greenleafs courtesy of OWN are back! (This Greenleaf recap is brought to you by the letter “B.”)

Bad Boys…

The episode begins right where the Mid-Season Finale ended with Grace and her Uncle Mac on the glass-littered floor of his apartment. She’s coughing and he’s writhing as blood spews from his jugular. She summons enough strength to get the upper hand and croaks out, “Tell me where my daughter is!” Mac pleads with his niece to call for help, but she refuses to comply unless he answers her. By the time she finally understands that he is saying, “I don’t know,” Mac dies right there on the floor, but not before his final two words are: “I’m sorry.”

Only then does Grace call 911 and explains to the police that Mac slammed her in the wall and tried to choke her. She tell them that she thought he had her daughter, and they tell her the bottle that was used to fatally wound Mac bears her fingerprints.  Mac, the bad boy we all love to hate, leaves in a body bag while Grace goes to the hospital.

It’s the morning after for Aaron and Kevin who are no longer just boys kickin’ it. Aaron is fast asleep in bed while Kevin sits up in bed next to him, contemplating what they’ve done. He hears his son Nathan crying on the baby monitor and leaves Aaron to tend to his son in the nursery.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, like an episode of “COPS,” pictures of Grace and all the wounds covering her body are taken. Grace asks a detective, “Am I under arrest?” He replies, “No, pastor, you are free to go.” Bishop and Lady Mae worry in the waiting area hoping to see Grace soon. While they wait, Lady Mae begins to reminisce about her deceased brother, but Bishop nips that in the bud. “Our daughter nearly died tonight so pardon me if I ask to be excused from hearing some fond memory of the man who tried to kill her.” When Grace finally appears, Lady Mae says, “I’m so relieved that you are alive. I know it was self defense.” In a rare moment of affection for her daughter, Lady Mae tells Grace that she loves her and Grace tearfully responds with, “I love you, Mama.”

Back at the Greenleaf estate, Grace finds her own daughter asleep on a sofa. Once she awakens her, she is stunned to discover that Mac had nothing to do with Sofia’s whereabouts. She had been with Zora at a recording studio all along. While Sofia is glad to see her mother alive, she doesn’t hesitate to call her out on her bad behavior, pointing out that Grace went to Mac’s home after she promised that she was done with her vigilante justice.

Finally free from the grip of Bad Boy/Pastor Basie Skanks, Jacob and Kerissa hatch a plan to get back in the good graces of Bishop since they now own the property where Triumph 2 was going to be built.

Buck the System…

Charity has bucked the system by being the happiest divorcée ever it seems. She totally skipped over the mourning period of the death of her marriage and is kee keeing it up with Jabari in his Nashville recording studio. Wearing a black and white striped, tight dress, she is elated that a girls group is singing one of her songs in front of them. When Kevin calls, she tells him that she is happy they can be friends. Kevin seems to agree with her, at least verbally, but a tear drops from his eye and slides down his face at the same time. I’m not sure if he misses Charity or feels guilty about his night with Aaron or a bit of both.

Grace goes back to her office at the church in an effort hold her head high and not appear to be hiding away due to guilt. Darius, whose call she did not answer the night before, is waiting on her in her office. They discuss her ordeal as they proceed to the sanctuary of the church. Grace has to convince the police that she did not go to Mac’s house with malicious intent. Good luck with that. Darius, who is not a religious man, bucks the system and asks the pastor has she prayed about it. “It might be a good time to toss one up,” he says. They embrace in front of the altar.

Bearing good news, Jacob meets with the Bishop in his office and tell him what happened with Basie and the fact that he now owns the property across the way from Calvary. Bishop calls Basie a “diminutive demon!” LOL. Jacob suggests with Basie and Triumph out of the picture, he and his father can be co-pastors of Calvary and use the land however the two of them see fit. Bishop bucks the system and shuts his son down yet again. “I don’t need a co-pastor anymore than I need a cane to walk with.” Y’all know the Bishop has Parkinson’s disease, right?

While Aaron and Kevin may have shared a bed, Kevin has bucked the system, avoiding Aaron by leaving the Greenleaf estate too early to have contact with him and avoiding his calls as well. Aaron leaves a message on his voicemail, hoping to hear back from Kevin at some point.

Cousins Sofia and Zora discuss the incident in which Isaiah confronted Zora about expressing an opinion about his music and how he came off like he wanted to throw some blows with his girlfriend as a result. “You shouldn’t see him again,” Sofia tells Zora. At first Zora bucks, but then says, “I’ll dump him but you have to help me find a new bae.”

Although Kevin put the brakes on Aaron, the Greenleaf counsel still has business to conduct. He tells Grace how to buck the system before an interview she has with the police. He instructs her to tell the police that she only picked up the bottle because she was afraid she was going to die and after that, she remembers nothing.

But for the Grace of God…

Despite following Aaron’s direction, Grace is worried that she could go down for killing her uncle. She makes her father promise that he will do all he can to hold on to Sofia as she is worried that Sofia’s father, Ray, will try to get her to come with him since she may be off to jail. Bishop tells her that she is not going to jail. Grace responds, “I wish I had your faith.”

At Calvary, Kevin busts into a Fortitude for Families meeting and yells, “I screwed up!” He continues, telling the people gathered in the room that “it’s all a lie. All of you are lying to yourself.” He was trying to remain in God’s good graces by attending these meetings but obviously feels betrayed that the meetings did not help him at all.

Grace seeks the grace of God as well as she finally kneels in front of the sanctuary’s altar and says, “I’m so sorry. I tried to do the right thing. You know my heart. Don’t take my daughter away.”

Back at the Greenleaf estate, Charity comes back in a hurry after Kevin tells her what happened with Grace. When she goes into Nathan’s nursery to check on her son, she finds a note from Kevin that is so painful she begins to cry. What did that note say?!!! I guess we will find out tomorrow!

While Lady Mae is glad that her daughter is the one who survived the death match with Mac, she admits to her husband that she is still grieving for Mac. She also and finally admits that his abusive behavior may have been something he learned from their father. “Maybe Mac became the way he was by watching Daddy do what he did to me.” So yes, Lady Mae was molested like her daughter Faith was molested. But for the Grace of God, her life could have ended the same way her daughter’s ended.  For some reason, Lady Mae was able to continue living while daughter Faith chose to take her own life.

While Grace is her bedroom, Aaron comes to tell her some good news. “The prosecutor’s office is not going to pursue charges against you,” Aaron says before hugging her. Grace doesn’t quite believe him but then he says, “Sometimes the bear gets you and sometimes you get the bear.”

With that, Grace runs outside to take the good news in, sho nuff evidence of God’s grace, on the lake which is where Faith drowned. While she is there, somehow, mysteriously, she hears the voice of Mac. “You know how many times I prayed not to go to jail? Hundreds.”

Hmmmm….Is Mac really dead? Maybe not although I’m not sure how. In my interview with GregAlan Williams, who portrays Mac McCready, last week, he told me, “As to whether he [Mac] will live or die, I will say this to you: every goodbye ain’t gone.”

I can’t wait till tomorrow night!!! Check out a video preview below…

Thank you sooo much for reading my Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 9 and my other recaps so far.

If you would like to keep up with OWN’s “Greenleaf,” and my recaps, please click on this link to subscribe to my blog 🙂!

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Greenleaf Recap Season 2 Episode 2: Strange Bedfellows…

Hello World,

As usual, the writers of OWN’s “Greenleaf” put their feet into this holy stew of a show, episode 2 of Season 2,…but thankfully, this episode was decidedly calmer though no less entertaining than the season opener…And for good reason too…I don’t think I could handle another explosive episode just yet…But what this episode did do was identify the strings that will be woven into the tapestry of this season…Y’all like that? My attempt at being poetic at 11 o’clock at night…

Alright, I’m going in…

Cross My Heart…

This episode starts with Bishop and Lady Mae having pillow talk about Basie Skanks and Jacob moving out of the Greenleaf estate. What I find most entertaining in this scene is that rapper-sized cross pendant that Bishop is rocking…Did I see chest hair nestled underneath the cross pendant? Not to mention his wave cap…Playa, playa even…Although Lady Mae doesn’t want her baby boy to leave, Bishop says he is ready for the movers to come and move Jacob’s furniture “piece by ill-gotten piece!” Lady Mae asks her husband to tell Jacob the truth about Pastor Basie, but Bishop refuses. Plus, he’s not really sure that Basie is who he says he is because he only remembers Daryl James, the caretaker, having two daughters..

In another part of the house, cousins Sophia and Zora giggle about Sophia’s crush on Isaiah Hambrick, the young hottie gospel singer at Triumph. Zora encourages Sophia to stop checking his Instagram page and slide into his DM. (Aww, #younglove) She also tells her cousin that Isaiah rehearses at Triumph every Saturday. You know Zora is fast, right?

And in yet another part of the house, Jacob and Kerissa discuss their impending move to the Triumph parsonage (a home for the pastor of a church for my folk who didn’t grow up in church). Apparently, even Jacob was surprised by Pastor Basie’s announcement that Jacob is going to be the new pastor at the second location. He says, “He should have told me he was giving me that church.” Still, while Jacob doesn’t like the way his pastorate was announced, in his heart, he believes he is making the right decision to move on from Greenleaf…

Cash Rules Everything Around Me…

Now that Bishop is no longer being investigated, he and his rib, Lady Mae, are free to scheme, I mean plan, in his office instead of at their home. They’ve decided that Carlton, the choir director, has got to go in order for them to raise money for the Fall Revival. Lady Mae summons her daughter to Bishop’s office by putting some weird bird sculpture on her desk. When Pastor Grace sees the sculpture, she knows that her mother is summoning her and shows up at Bishop’s office. Was the sculpture a bird? Was that a Phoenix rising? Anywho, Lady Mae tells Grace that she would like to have Betty Wilcox’s check before she leaves to go to New Orleans and that the only way that will happen is if Carlton is fired. In last week’s episode, Betty told Grace that church members weren’t giving as they once had because Carlton married his boyfriend and don’t approve of the union. Grace cannot believe that her father would co-sign on Carlton’s being canned, but he says, “I can’t lose half of my deacon board over one choir director.”

Although Greenleaf is paying Jabari Johnson $50,000 to produce Charity’s new album, he won’t be cut from the staff because it’s clear that Charity and Jabari have some chemistry…I’m not sure if that chemistry will just be contained in the music or will it evolve into something more….Judging by how Jabari described the vocals on one of Charity’s songs as “pressing against each other,” he could be pressing up on her during Season 2 of OWN’s “Greenleaf.”

The Devil is in the Details…

Pastor Jacob meets with Pastor Basie at Triumph church to discuss Pastor Basie’s surprise announcement and other matters related to his new position. He tells Basie, “You could have given me the heads up,” but Basie drops another surprise on him as Basie says he was directed by the Lord?! In other words, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision….Yeah right…Jacob continues to question his new boss until Basie shuts him down by saying that when Jacob was under his father, he “languished like an anemic little weed.” He also tells him, “I’ve given you everything you’ve ever wanted. Don’t accuse me of lying.” Jacob can see his point, but then Basie has yet another surprise announcement. He wants Jacob to go door to door in the neighborhoods surrounding Calvary Fellowship World Ministries and personally invite people to Triumph rather than Calvary. When Jacob points out that most of those people already attend Calvary, Basie does not care…

So Jacob goes door to door handing out bags and mugs with Triumph’s logo on them. One woman calls Jacob out! She says, “Does Bishop know you’re here recruiting?” Then she tells him, “I don’t care if that mug came wrapped in the cloth they wrapped my Lord in when he died. I’m with Calvary!” Let the church say, “Ouch!” LOL…Funniest line of the episode!

It’s also hilarious when Basie’s wife takes Kerissa to the parsonage for the first time. Some would call it modest. I call it homely. The roof was old and dusty looking. It’s one story. The grass looks like it needs cutting. Instead of moving up on like the Jeffersons, they’re moving from the palace to the poorhouse….But hey, for better or for worse, right? I wonder if Jacob and Kerissa would known about this detail in advance, would Jacob have agreed to be the pastor of Triumph’s second location? I think the Bishop forced Jacob’s hand as he said his (whom Jacob called a false prophet straight up in his face) father doesn’t respect him as a pastor, son or man. Lady Mae agrees with Jacob’s assessment of his father’s opinion of him, but when she points that out, Bishop tells her she is jealous of Grace. Probably…I mean Grace has the kind of relationship that any daughter would want with a father while Lady Mae obviously had a sick relationship with hers…

When Grace cannot get Charity to convince her mother to reconsider the decision to fire Carlton, she takes another course of action. She calls Darius Nash (Rick Fox…I cannot believe that most of his hair is gray…He’s been handsome for a long time and he still is!  A silver fox! ) ) who asked her out on a date earlier in episode. I thought she was going to tell Darius what was about to happen to Carlton so that he would write a story about it and shame the church board into keeping Carlton, but they end up going on a date after all.  It’s a dinner and dancing date (with Pastor Grace drinking beer and everythang…Darius assures her that no one in the club goes to church) but in the course of the evening, off the record, of course, she does tells him what is about to happen with Carlton. I still think she wants to know this tidbit on the sly, and she hopes he will run with it. But she does find herself attracted to him with the all the smiling and laughing that happened during their evening together.

Too bad Sophia is not having the same luck with Isaiah. He invites her to come see him rehearse at Triumph, but he pays more attention to Zora who came along with Sophia for moral support. So am I the only one who thinks Isaiah sounds like he is singing to a woman and not to God? Something about the way he holds himself as he is singing…

Man Down…

Daddy McCready is about to die. While Lady Mae refuses to visit him since he has already served his purpose by not testifying against her husband, her husband is willing to see him on his death bed. While there, Bishop attempts to ask him about whether Daryl had a son, but Mac, Daddy McCready’s son, shows up. Bishop tells him, “The Lord says I have to forgive you, and one day, I may, but I will never forget.” Then he says, “I will leave you to deal with your father until you have to deal with ours.” Another good line!” Daddy McCready admits to his son that he doesn’t want to die, but Mac attempts to comfort him by saying that his death will be like the time his father threw him in a lake. “At first, it will be cold and scary, but then you’re going to swim all the way across to Jesus.” That was sweet.

In another father and son scenario…Although Kevin and Charity’s son Nathan is here, Kevin is still staying in a hotel away from his family. And Charity still hasn’t come to one of his gay conversion therapy meetings.  He gets upset when he realizes that his son is suffering from a rash, and he didn’t know anything about it. The leader of the meeting encourages him to stand up as a man with Charity and demand that he be more involved with his son. His stance works, and Charity invites him to spend the night at the estate…In my opinion, they are still going to break up, but it was a nice moment…

Tired of waiting for Grace to fire Carlton, Lady Mae decides to fire him herself. She offers to serve as a personal reference should he need it for another job. Instead of simply accepting what Lady Mae is telling him (that it was a financial decision only), he plainly asks her what she thinks about gay marriage. She replies, “I believe what the Bible says about marriage.” Carlton offers to pray for her.

When Grace finds out what happened, she shows up at Carlton’s house and invites Carlton and his husband to come to Greenleaf even if Carlton is no longer the choir director. Carlton says, “I’m sick of people who love you all week, but shove you into a closet on Sunday morning.”

The episode ends with Jacob, who will finally be the man of his own house, and his family leaving the Greenleaf estate in a Cadillac. That Cadillac is going to crush their little bitty, new-to-them but otherwise old driveway. Still, Kerissa caresses her husband’s shoulder as the Greenleaf gates shut behind them. As a wife, you’ve got to stand by your man, that’s for sure…

Check out Darius asking out Grace below…

So that concludes my Greenleaf Season 2 Episode 2 recap!

Let me know how you liked this Greenleaf recap in the comments, please and thank you 🙂

Any thoughts?