Queenie Episode 2: Clean Break, Queenie
“You know there’s always a room for you here,” Queenie’s grandmother Veronica tells her after moving much of her belongings out of her apartment with Tom and into her grandparents’ shed.
Queenie’s friends Kyazike and Frank do her a solid and help her move the rest of her things to her “new” place, where if I’m not mistaken, I heard a squeak, which means some uninvited guests. That alone would make me take Grandmother Veronica up on her offer. Queenie is still processing the break/break up with Tom, telling Kyazike that they haven’t spoken since she told him she’s moved out, and is still reminiscing about their firsts.
The more Queenie works to distract herself, the more she fails at thinking about anything else but Tom. From her yoga session with Cassandra, to the party with the white Brits, where the only Black person won’t wave at her, Queenie’s desperation is in full view when she creates a Love Below profile with the help of her queer bestie, and sends Tom her profile pic to which he replies “clean break, Queenie”. That sent her over the proverbial edge by texting her not so secret admirer Adi thinking, if Tom doesn’t want to see me in this dress, I know someone who does. Having drank herself to sleep in a claw foot tub, she stands up her would be hook up who’s waiting in the car, wondering where she is.
Queenie finds little reprieve at her place of work, where she pitches a writing piece on racial tension in the UK to her boss Gina, but is turned down as she prefers that Queenie stay in her lane and stick to what she was hired for. “Queenie, you know I love your quirkiness,” she starts. “But I really need you to focus, compartmentalize, and get back to being the plucky, capable, bright social media assistant I actually have a lot of time for.” Queenie, deflated, moves on and asks Darcy what she thinks about Tom’s three-worded text, which doesn’t help Queenie much, because let her tell it, “my life is falling apart bit by bit, I’m living with people who don’t take their shoes off at the door, plus I had a miscarriage and the person I want to talk to about it won’t text me back.” It also doesn’t help that she’s now screening messages from the dating app she joined to the tune of I bet you taste like chocolate. If I pull your hair, will it come off? And lastly, nice smile, what else that mouth do? *shudders in disgust*
In an attempt to further distract herself, she calls her friends for a night out at Peckham’s nightclub Tola for their gentrified Super Freak Hip Hop night where the partying is cut short, as a white girl violates Queenie’s personal space and grabs her ass, thinking it’s a compliment. Kyazike gets ready to kick her ass when unfortunately, they are the ones kicked out of the club after the white girl pulls the victim card and waterworks to our utmost dismay. I appreciate Kyazike who peeped the girl almost like she knew she was about to pull some shit, and was ready to pop off in defense of her friend. Unfortunately the consequence was being removed from an environment that they remember being a space for them to let loose and have fun, but has now been commandeered by those who have no self-awareness and are willing to weaponize their fragility at the drop of the hat.
We near the end of the night, where the gang finds themselves at Southside Kitchen. Kyazike is entertaining the “rapper”, and Queenie snaps at Frank after hallucinating him saying she’d always been stupid just like her mother, when he was teasing her about still being hung up on Tom. “I know for a fact, Tom is having a good time right now,” he concludes. “You should be trying to do the same.”
Queenie decides to hit up her lowest hanging fruit who is ready with a moment’s notice, and for a split second starts to reconsider. Oh God, am I really doing this? I felt so sad and disappointed for Queenie in the final moments of the episode, giving this guy who means nothing to her a hand job, and not long after having sex with him. All in an attempt to keep from dealing with her reality around the end of her relationship, the baby she lost, and how she sees herself.
I’m curious to know how much longer Queenie will try to avoid the issues that seem to confront her everywhere she goes. We see less of her family in this episode, but learn more about her deep inner voice and who it sounds like in her head. Time will tell if she’ll finally stop running, truly process what she’s been through, and maybe replace the voice of her father with her own.
