Damn Davis! I Didn’t Know Your Restaurant Delivered!

 

The one ship in Girlfriends that didn’t get a chance to sail—(Joavis or Hamton) for Joan Clayton and Davis Hamilton. 

Picture this: a Girlfriends reunion film includes Joan Clayton and her three besties Maya Wilkes, Lynn Searcy, and Toni Childs alongside Toni’s twenty-year-old daughter Morgan Garrett and Maya’s son Jabari Wilkes indulging in the ultimate bachelorette weekend in Ghana. The lush, colorful scenery gives the audience an inviting glimpse into African glory, the hypnotic beats set the mood, and the golden ladies dance with each other, dewy skin glowing, fully in the cusp of embracing their fifties. Out of nowhere, the music stops and Davis enters, his eyes finding Joan’s immediately….

Sadly, it won’t happen, as any potential has been shut down— not to say that my idea was their intention anyway. Might be better in the fanfiction realm. 

Davis (Randy Goodwin) and Joan (Tracee Ellis Ross) shared conversation proves that their attraction remains mutual despite their opposing relationship goals. 

Davis doesn’t want to let go of Joan’s hand and who could blame him? 

Davis Hamilton, the handsome owner of the 847 restaurant was the best possible fit for Joan, lawyer turned eventual business owner. Who could ever forget their fire chemistry in season one’s second episode, One Night Stand? Joan almost risked her three-month rule, telling an elaborate exaggeration to her friends about an innocent moment between her and the engaged Davis. It’s where we get Toni’s infamous line, “damn Davis! I didn’t know your restaurant delivered!” 

By the end, a newly single Davis offers Joan the very thing she was obsessing over. 

“Yes! Oh God yes! The couch, the tables, wherever you want!” Joan’s mind screams. 

Bravely, Joan sticks to using her shower head for experimental purposes. Her declination of Davis also promised growth, that the next partner would be worth the drought. Whereas Davis represented playing the field— the kind of man putting no effort into a commitment so soon after a called off engagement. He was nursing no broken heart and desired an instantaneous “no strings attached” situation, a lackluster, anti-Joan incentive. 

Look at Joan’s (Tracee Ellis Ross) smitten face as Maya (Golden Brooks), Toni (Jill Marie Jones), and Lynn (Persia White) watch in season one, episode fourteen’s Bad Timing! 

Joan and Davis continue their light flirtations along the course of random episodes, a subtle cross between a friendly association and sweet customer / owner camaraderie. Joan enters relationships with Marcus, the hips who buys the special Joan-tone phone, Frank, the married guy, and Sean, the recovering sex addict— the latter notices a problem between Joan and Davis.

When Sean’s away to Toronto around Valentine’s Day, Davis brings lunch over to Joan’s office and steals a passionate kiss. 

Later, Davis (Randy Goodwin) comes to Joan’s (Tracee Ellis Ross) house and requests her company for the weekend— to explore what it is between them. Sean (Dondre T. Whitfield) returns early and doesn’t like what he sees. 

Joan is tempted by Davis’s enticing Palm Springs weekend, showcasing that the man still hasn’t learned from One Night Stand. If Joan and Davis were both available, their relationship foundation would have been stronger and mutually beneficial— the only scandal existing being their electric charisma. Unfortunately, Joan ultimately chooses Sean over Davis, settling. In the long run, perhaps Joan believes that Davis isn’t serious, that he would break her heart. She didn’t want to take that chance. Instead, she lets her boyfriend issue an ultimatum— stop going to Davis’s restaurant. 

Joan and Sean and Davis and Ava stay cordial, but the little longing looks Joan and Davis give each other over their loved one’s shoulders spoke volumes.  

Davis straight macks a blushing Joan as Sean uncomfortably looks on in season one, episode nineteen’s A Kiss Before Lying— a play on Ernest Gaines novel A Lesson Before Dying. 

Joan hosts an intimate dinner at her home with Sean, Davis, and Ava. It does not go well. 

Joan and Davis’s last encounter occurred in season four, episode thirteen’s The Comedy of Eros— and it involves an humbling intimacy differing from their previous interactions. In fact, the short and special interlude makes us still pine for what ifs between them. 

After a recent breakup, Joan spends February Fourteenth celebrating that other holiday— the disregarded Single Awareness Day. This down-to-earth side of Joan temporarily quiets her typical obsession about men, getting hitched, and having babies for a minute, to love on herself. However, it was quite adorable that Toni bought Joan a tennis bracelet. She knew where to find her best friend, having noticed that Joan’s “movie sweater” was missing. 

Toni believes that going to the cinema alone is pathetic and kindly wants to be there for Joan…

Except Joan doesn’t want her company. 

Joan evades her well-meaning bestie, moving to another part of the theater and bashes popcorn in front of none other than Davis Hamilton. They bask in the delight of each other’s presence, hugging and smiling, looking like radiant old friends. The chemistry remains undeniably palpable despite Joan’s determined independence. It’s hard to believe that their past merely included Davis giving Joan discounted meals at 847, stealing a sullen kiss, and asking her to go away with him. 

Joan enjoys her film and popcorn as a familiar face recognizes her.

Naturally, Joan and Davis sit together.

Joan and Davis later have dinner and wine at a restaurant, appearing every bit a couple surrounded by other couple. Davis has once again broken off his engagement to Ava and no longer runs 847. He reminisces on their three-year-old near rendezvous, also occurring near Valentine’s Day. Joan admits that she too is single. He asks the big question— “how come we never got together?” 

Bad timing. Always bad timing. 

True to life. 

Often, circumstances do not align at the moments we want them to. In the beginning, Joan and Davis both needed to mature in certain areas of their respective lives. The mutual attraction was always evident. They just were never ready to go there, to get real serious and vulnerable. Joan sabotaged almost all her relationships with her strict rules and bare minimum compromise. Davis, the cavalier flirt, kept bouncing back to Ava, obviously connected to her in a major way. Thus, there’s no telling if he eventually reunited with her. Or maybe the change in his character was genuine and honest, letting go of the unhealthy weights that no longer held value to him. 

Still, Joan friendzones Davis and views another film, taking pride in her choice to be alone. 

Joan and Davis toast to becoming friends (offscreen because we never see or hear him mentioned again). 

Overall, an indie-spirited Girlfriends film not happening seems so cruel, especially after eighteen years without receiving solid answers. Fans deserve a proper ending to eight seasons. We can invent stories in our heads about Joan, Lynn, Toni, and Maya having backyard barbecues, continuing old traditions such as Joan’s wild Halloween parties. Toni and Joan would reset their relationship as Issa and Molly had done in Insecure. The four ladies would chat about shopping, staying fabulously beautiful, and keeping their relationships exciting among menopause, adult children, dying parents, and health scares. The multiple story arcs potential is strong. 

The ladies were together again in a 2019 episode of black•ish. 

So while Joan Clayton and Davis Hamilton are the key couple in my romanticized imagination, Joan alongside Maya, Lynn, and Toni stays the central heart of the vision— the true love story that Mara Akil Brock wanted audiences to root for. 

A Belated Sorry To Isabel on ‘Greenleaf’

For only nine episodes, Anna Diop played the fiancée of Noah on OWN’s juicy church series Greenleaf. Most of us were not meant to be on her side. 

Oh dearest Isabel.

I apologize for not seeing through to Greenleaf’s problematic gaze sooner. For so long, I was blind to the obvious intentions to make dark-skinned Black women poorly unrootable characters. With Charity’s terrible storylines, Kerissa being cheated on, Zora the Bad Seed, and Isabel, the bitter, unwanted shrew, I should have been the light earlier on. Naturally, we were supposed to be Team Gigi— the light-skinned, long haired leading lady who still desired Noah, the chauffeur— Isabel’s extremely fickle fiancé.  

Isabel (Anna Diop) tried to make Gigi feel small for not having a date to her and Noah’s (Benjamin Patterson) engagement party.

I revisit Greenleaf with a freshly opened mind now. 

Sometimes television shows depict the fiancée/girlfriend as the real side chick— a man’s last desperate quest to commitment despite truly not being one-hundred percent sure. Sex and the City’s Mr. Big still wanted Carrie, Insecure’s Lawrence still wanted Issa, and Harlem’s Issac still wanted Camille. Although Lawrence wasn’t married to his eventual baby mother, Condola, they were in a serious relationship. Mr. Big was married and Issac engaged. When the ex is within sight, the man’s eyes strays to the one who got away, forgetting that his intended exists. In Greenleaf, Noah wanted Gigi the moment she came back home. It was apparent in his gaze, his body language. The undeniable thirst wasn’t necessarily unreturned either. Yet Isabel stayed pressing him on, being every inch the Christian woman mirroring another woman’s behavior. Kerissa likely trapped her polyamorous husband Jacob with the same teasing game. 

Isabel deserved better than Noah and a tired “other woman” story. 

Obviously, the audience is not supposed to champion Isabel. She must be written as unsympathetic as possible so that Gigi, the sainted soulmate, swoops in and takes back her former lover. Isabel withholds sex from Noah, wanting to save it for marriage— an old-fashioned tradition. It is a beautiful pact, not for everyone in the contemporary age. She uses it, however, as a bargaining tool, a chip to keep Noah in line. Except free spirited, lonely Gigi desires Noah too. It doesn’t take long for her to be “ridden hard and put away wet” by Noah. Unfortunately, Isabel puts two and two together. Instead of dumping a cheater who doesn’t love her, she chooses to break her vow, having sex with him. This is disturbing for two reasons— Isabel’s foolish determination to win a man already lost and giving him something he did not deserve. 

At the time, I remembered vouching hard for Gigi and Noah. Maybe it was the heightened soapy drama of it all, that forbidden passion, those longing looks. Yet behind my rooting, I wondered what would have happened if Gigi and Isabel switched places. What if Isabel and Noah were the past lovers and Gigi, the jilted fiancée? See the blatant colorism tactics on Greenleaf definitely set out to disservice Isabel and her beautiful portrayer Anna Diop (who leads and puts on a terrific, layered performance in Nikyatu Jusu’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning Nanny). She was a victim of the show’s specific agenda. By making the lighter skinned and biracial women characters more desirable and sympathetic, Isabel and others of her complexion had no real chance. Isabel was in the way of “true love” and the slanted writing did her no favors. In addition to this Greenleaf situation, Diop later endured racist fueled hatred for playing an orange character in the DC serial Titans. So that adds an extra layer of regret on past treatment to her and Isabel (mean tweets exist). 

We still have much unlearning to do, especially in regards to how dark-skinned Black women are treated in television and film, even in the year 2022. 

Model/actress/activist Anna Diop from Okay Africa’s 100 Women.

When Isabel and Noah eventually leave town, they sadly marry offscreen— which quite frankly is doomed to fail because Isabel deserves a man who fully loves her. It is another obstacle. This notion that Black women have to settle for less. Isabel likely believes that being far removed from temptation changes a man’s heart, but that’s still the thorn prickling between them. Isabel is not first in Noah’s heart. Although they later divorce (also offscreen), Isabel was in the same rocky boat as Charity Greenleaf. They both married people hiding their true selves. Except in Isabel’s case, she knew that Noah still loved Gigi and Charity had no idea Kevin grappled with his sexuality. 

After an ice cold Nina Simone moment of removing myself from a table where love (if you can call it love) was no longer being served, I stopped watching Greenleaf mid season three. The red flags were practically bursting at the seams. The once guilty pleasure made me feel guilty for being a dark-skinned Black woman watching those looking like me getting shafted, treated like second best (or last best in Isabel’s case). There was nothing or no one to celebrate or root for. Charity continued falling in a downward spiral, Zora stayed abused, and Kerissa schemed and schemed over a man who still kept cheating. 

We the offended should have followed in Isabel’s footsteps in Greenleaf. We should have up and left the poisonous realm that the Calvary provided too. The whole environment was unhealthy and toxic. In a caring, promising future, writers must be able to craft out supportive, compassionate spaces for gorgeous, dark-skinned Black women like Isabel who shouldn’t have to change and/or sacrifice herself in order to obtain an unwilling man. 

This is a genuine sorry to Isabel (and Anna Diop) and the other dark-skinned Black women characters partaking in a predictable story that we all know so well. We reject with a full, valiant heart. 

Isabel deserved better.

The audience deserved better.