Why is Nomi pregnant? What are we going to gain from it?
If you follow me on twitter, then you know I have a very strange relationship with Grownish. To say that I hate-watch it seems too far. I am entertained. There are bits (and to be clear, they are bits) of the show that I really enjoy. However, overall I think it is a show that has/had a lot of potential but is consistently poorly written and poorly executed. Usually I watch an episode and end with a mini twitter thread about all the things that were just silly. Two episodes into season three, and that’s no exception.
At the end of season 2, Nomi gets a call that indicates the university knows about her relationship with Professor Hewson. I was honestly a bit hype about that storyline. Mostly because I hated that Nomi was dating this professor with no acknowledgment that it was weird and predatory. It bothered me that this was the LGBT relationship we got to see on screen-- one in which a much older woman in a position of power is using this very young student. The phone call that implied this was going to be dealt with was exciting, and surely it would be a significant part of Nomi’s upcoming storyline.
Instead… Nomi comes back pregnant. Five months (!!!) pregnant. We get a brush off line that says “she doesn’t work here anymore” in regards to Professor Hewson, are left to assume that’s the resolution of that phone call, and that’s it.
What are we going to gain from it?
First of all, I definitely don’t think this was something they had planned when season two of Grownish ended. I guess the story tracks in timeline (they got lucky with their time jump to the end of the Joey Bada$$ pop up shop) but considering we don’t even hear about this supposed condom-less one night stand Nomi has, or see her slightly stressed about a potential pregnancy, it seems like this was something they came up with in the interim. I’m not a professional TV writer, but I’m sure they would’ve gotten a lot more mileage by teasing something at the end of the season, as opposed to showing us a clip (that is never featured on the show) of someone we don’t know taking a pregnancy test, and then having said pregnant person just pop up at the end of the episode.
I don’t know why the writers chose to abandon a storyline they had invested in and made sense to instead go forward with this out of nowhere, random pregnancy. But if they’re going to do it, I hope that they’ll do something interesting with it. But so far…
In “Damn,” a major part of the storyline becomes Zoey’s reaction after discovering Nomi told Luca and didn’t tell her. Listen. I don’t need Grownish to be a very accurate depiction of college. I don’t! They can have their ridiculously nice apartments and in-dorm parties that somehow don’t ever get busted. They can have a very classy on campus lounge that doesn’t even pretend to need a fake ID. But can they get some things right?! You are not going to tell me that your friend shows up five months pregnant from some random one night stand and the big issue becomes her not telling you specifically… when she actually didn’t tell most of the group. I know that Zoey is a narcissist but come on. Do young women in college have babies frequently? Sure. Is it something worth portraying? Yes. But if you’re going to do it, then do it right.
At the end of the episode, there was a glimmer of hope. We learn that Nomi was heartbroken from her breakup with Professor Hewson, realized she was pregnant, and relished the idea of having a baby that would love her back no matter what. That makes sense. Now she’s scared that she made a mistake and doesn’t know what to do. That makes sense too. (Granted, I wish I could’ve seen this over time as opposed to a last-five-minutes-of-the-ep reveal… but I’ll give it to them) It was a very tender moment between Zoey and Nomi.
Do I have faith that this small glimmer of a moment will lead to them handling this pregnancy storyline well? Not really. This is the same show that had a whole episode dedicated to them calling out the cultural appropriation that their South Asian friend is engaging in… while simultaneously having this “woke” group hang out with a Republican maybe Trump supporter that says racist things all the time. I don’t trust them to handle many things well. The pregnancy will probably quickly be subsumed under this Luca/Ryan Destiny/Zoey/Aaron love quadrangle I know they’re about to force us through. It’s not going to be well executed.
Maybe they’ll surprise me! But I doubt it.
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