The Rumour Has It S2 E1-7 Rundown

Last we heard from the cast and crew of “Rumour Has It” in Season 1, Obi was still in charge of the blog, things were falling apart in her personal life and also in that of her younger brother, Arinze’s, marriage. In season 1 the focus of the show was on Obi, played by Uru Eke, and her personal life. In season 2, things are turned around and the lead character is Dolapo.

The first thing that strikes you this season is the incredibly elevated production quality. If I was to rank the most impressive things about this season it would be production quality first, production quality second and production quality third. Everything from the cinematography to the picture to the costumes and the settings are nothing short of beautiful. And that beauty extends all the way to the cast.

Dolapo, played by Linda Ejiofor, is looking more beautiful than she ever has before on screen and she is paired beside the hotness-effusing Mawuli Gavor. Now these two characters ar in somewhat of a shaky marriage. They have been married for many years and don’t have a child because homeboy has a low sperm count (or something like that). And while he is secretly flying around the world trying to find a cure to his situation, his wife is of the impression that he is not interested in their marriage and he is cheating on her. What was all that about the importance of communication that you people learnt in your pre-marital counseling classes? Don’t forget to communicate people!

So of course the fact that he is cheating on her means she can cheat on him. Don’t ask me where my logic is coming from. I’m just narrating what I am seeing. So she meets Femi, the corny and unfunny – in my opinion – at a restaurant. His opening line is some arrogant joke that attacks ijebu garri that somehow manages to make Dolapo laugh. This was when I knew this chic has no sense of discernment because why else would you encourage an attack on Ijebu garri. Femi strolls into Dolapo’s life on the pretext of helping her improve her website and from there he manages to stroll into her panties.

Before we know it home-girl is sleeping with Femi and sleeping with Franklin too at the same time. Except this time Franklin has changed. He is now attentive to her, he is now dropping rose petals on floors, now cooking lunch in a fiiinnnnneeee apron (to be honest, I remember that scene vividly but I am not really sure what the apron looked like because…. Mawuli!). In summary, homeboy has done a whole 180 overnight so Dolapo thinks about it and decides that she should probably lock it down with her forever bae – Franklin, and end things with her drive-by-bae, Femi.

Except craze person, Femi, is not having any of it. He turns around and pulls a whole Micheal Ealy ala “The Perfect Guy” and goes bat crazy on her. He starts stalking her, forcing his presence on her, slashing her tires and oh yeah he records a sex tape which he then delivers to Ranti to release on rumourhasit.com. I like how they continue to maintain the relevance of the title and tie it back to season 1.

Who is Ranti you may ask? That one is a whole other class of demons. Long story short, Ranti worked for Obi on the site and while Obi is out of the country, she steals ownership of the website and refuses to return it.

If you remember from last season of Rumour Has It, the responses were not that amazing. Not a lot of people were in love with the show. This season, things are different. Or maybe it’s just because Skinny Girl is off and we have nothing else to watch. However, the producers have managed to snag our attentions and hold on to it.

It’s in the way that they are telling the story and revealing plot points that really hooks this audience. In episode one, Dolapo meets Femi and starts to date him. Any unsuspecting viewer would have thought, “aww love story”. Except we get to the end and homegirl slides on a ring. What’s that we said about Yoruba men being demons? Y’all are sleeping on these Yoruba females though. I wasn’t necessarily the biggest fan of the dedicated episode for Femi’s madness, but in the scene where he is sitting in front of his laptop watching their sex tape while eating popcorn, I was mildly convinced.

I already mentioned my top three things about this season – the production quality – but the next best thing is the storyline. It is not shockingly unpredictable but it switches things up enough to stay exciting.

Coming in fifth in my favorite things about this are the performances. Linda is solid, Jemima is scary and they both own their characters but their supporting cast don’t always do same. At some point after episode one you step away from awe of Mawuli’s beauty and realize that “eh, guy isn’t the most solid actor out there”. He is best at swag. He is best at casual scenes. However, he does not do very well with emoting and not much better with pulling the audience in.

Then there’s Efa Iwara. I will give it to Efa for trying with all his crazy character scenes and attempting to pull them off. However, even though he does better than most nollywood actors would be able to, he still never gets there completely. He never gets to a point of scary or antagonizing from the viewer’s perspective. At best he’s just irritating and any extra mood he conjures in those scenes is mostly brought about by the combined effects of the cinematography and music.

Regardless of all this, Rumour Has It Season 2, is still a strong viewing experience and we can’t wait for next week’s episode.