“The Differences Between Us” Skinny Girl Season 5 Episode 5 Recap

Apologies for the silence after last week’s huge episode. This week’s rant will include content from both but first of all a quick recap.

Last week was an hour long episode where we finally got to see the beautiful Yoruba engagement between our favorite TV couple. This episode also introduced us to Mide’s father and his health condition, Chris and Derin had a chance to start afresh under the influence of alcohol (Blame it on the alcohol), and finally Mide opened up to Tiwa about Theresa.

The episode begins where the last one left off. Mide and Tiwa are in a car after Mide breaks the news of his son to her, she tries to process it and steps out of the car. Such begins our couple’s first fight of the season. Later on in the episode they sit down in Mide’s office and try to talk it out but there humanity gets in the way. Mean things are said and again Tiwa walks out. It is beginning to look like Tiwa does a lot of walking away from confrontations. 

Episode 5 is one heck of a heavy episode.It focuses intensely on highlighting the differences between the characters.On the one hand, in this episode, we see our first official one-on-one interaction between Iya Mide and Mummy Tiwa, and just as mummy Tiwa is going on about her festival-like guest-list and Iya Mide is advocating for simplicity, you realize just how different these two are. At some point I got past the laughs and jokes of the scene and began to empathize with my parents especially in the moments when they insist that their children marry people who are culturally similar.

Even though our parents don’t always have it all figured out, especially considering that they mostly assume culture only means tribe and/or nationality (not realizing the stark differences that can exist in a similar tribe), we get to see more of their point when we look at Shalewa and Mo’s relationship. Finally in this episode we are introduced to Sophie Alakija’s character when Shalewa decides to pay Mo a surprise visit at his home (when are we all, collectively as a gender, going to realize that all these surprise visits are never a good idea?). Upon arrival she is greeted at the door by a strange woman who is then followed by Amir, Mo’s brother. After he speaks to her, Shalewa finally comes to realize exactly what Mohammed was referring to whenever he mentions family issues.

There are not too many laughs in this episode, as we go from being scared for the future of our favorite couple to learning that Daddy Mide’s health is quickly deteriorating, and then going from that to finding out that the TV license that the company has been working towards might not pan out after all. It seems as if Mide is being attacked on all sides. There’s a school of thought that continues to scream about how the longer episodes are leading to more drags. I am in the school of thought that believes that the longer episodes allows our lightweight romantic comedy to finally have heft – which is not a bad thing. 

Our characters in this episode are not only dealing with more internal issues than ever before but they are also highlighting societal issues and serving as an engine of transformation amongst their viewers. This episode alone has highlighted solid thought confabulations like can you be pro-adoption and against step-parenthood? Is step-parenting necessarily a scary thing in this generation of woke millennials? And then there are all the other issues like female empowerment, religious counseling (or just counseling in general), online dating, intra-continental work tourism, the intricacies of the adoption process, cross tribal and cross religious relationships, empowerment of the domestic help, the difficulties of establishing businesses in the Nigerian terrain amongst many other things this season has brought to the surface. So where most see slow episodes, we see edutainment. 

And of course by the end of the episode we are again left wondering whether Derin is a human being at all or just one of the devil’s demons that he forgot on earth. Next week, we are looking forward to finally meeting Theresa and her son (any guesses on who might play this role?), we are looking forward to watching Tiwa and Mide together again, and to seeing Shalewa and Mo get an opportunity to talk things out.