Speaker 1: Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
Speaker 1: conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
Speaker 1: decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
Speaker 1: of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor joy hard and Bradford,
Speaker 1: a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
Speaker 1: to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
Speaker 1: at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
Speaker 1: love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
Speaker 1: not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
Speaker 1: a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining me for session four seventy five of the
Speaker 1: Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. I'm so glad that you're
Speaker 1: spending some more time with me today, because today I'm
Speaker 1: welcoming the characters from the fire Star Weekend to the couch.
Speaker 1: We'll get right into this conversation after a quick word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors. So, after hearing about it from the
Speaker 1: Girl's own threads, I decided to binge the five Star Weekend.
Speaker 1: It's a show that pulls you in with complicated friendships
Speaker 1: and plenty of twists, but underneath all of that, it's
Speaker 1: asking much bigger questions, how well do we ever truly
Speaker 1: know the people closest to us, what happens when grief
Speaker 1: collides with long held secrets, and what does it take
Speaker 1: to finally reckon with the version of yourself you've spent
Speaker 1: years protecting. Today, we're unpacking the emotional journeys of each
Speaker 1: of the women at the center of the series. We'll
Speaker 1: break down the wounds and patterns they're carrying into the weekend,
Speaker 1: how each character navigates friendship, grief, forgiveness, and self discovery,
Speaker 1: and how the events of the weekend transport them and
Speaker 1: their relationships. So, if you finish the series or don't
Speaker 1: mind a few spoilers, get comfortable, because we're diving into
Speaker 1: the Five Star Weekend for a special episode of On
Speaker 1: the Couch. Let's get into it. So a little bit
Speaker 1: of a breakdown of what we actually see happening in
Speaker 1: the Five Star Weekend. So we have food blogger Hollis
Speaker 1: who's played by Jennifer Gorner, and she's trying to combat
Speaker 1: the loss of her husband, Matthew by recreating a five
Speaker 1: Star wee can get away at her house on Nantucket
Speaker 1: with four friends from different stages of her life. So
Speaker 1: there is her childhood friend Tatum, her college friend Dreuanne
Speaker 1: who's played by the hilarious Regina Hall, her motherhood friend Brooke,
Speaker 1: as well as a woman Gigi, who she recently met online.
Speaker 1: As the five friends spend the weekend together, they mature
Speaker 1: in ways they could never imagine, as boundaries are pushed
Speaker 1: and secrets are exposed. So if you have watched the series,
Speaker 1: then I'm sure that you have lots of thought as
Speaker 1: I do about all of the characters, which is why
Speaker 1: I thought it would make a great on the Couch episode.
Speaker 1: So let's just start with Hollis. So, Hollis is our
Speaker 1: main character. She is a food blogger. As women, as people,
Speaker 1: we all have our own coping strategies in the ways
Speaker 1: that we try to manage difficult things in our lives.
Speaker 1: And so Hollis Is, it feels like main coping strategy
Speaker 1: is perfectionism and presentation as a way to avoid things. Right. So,
Speaker 1: you know, she is a food blogger and a lot
Speaker 1: of her life revolves around making beautiful food to photograph
Speaker 1: and share with her audience, and so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of focus on things looking beautiful. Right, But this does
Speaker 1: not just stop in her world as it relates to
Speaker 1: her food and her work. There's also a very heavy
Speaker 1: focus on what her presentation of grief looks like. It
Speaker 1: looks like she is much more focused on how she
Speaker 1: is to the world as a grieving widow and not
Speaker 1: really wanting people to think that her world is falling apart.
Speaker 1: Then she is actually feeling the feelings of grief, and
Speaker 1: this actually leads to some tension with her daughter, Caroline,
Speaker 1: who is a college student, because Caroline doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: Mom is actually grieving the loss of Hollis's husband, and
Speaker 1: so there's some tension there because Caroline of course feels
Speaker 1: awful that her dad has passed away, but doesn't actually
Speaker 1: feel like Mom is so sad, and so there's some
Speaker 1: tension there. It feels like Caroline is trying to push
Speaker 1: Mom away because she doesn't feel like she really gets
Speaker 1: what the grief has done to her life. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: Hollis is grieving in her own way, which I think
Speaker 1: is an important thing to point out right that grief
Speaker 1: can look different for lots of different people. So, of
Speaker 1: course Hollis is grieving, but it doesn't look like what
Speaker 1: Caroline thinks it should look like. Which is where the
Speaker 1: tension comes from. So Hollis plans this weekend on Nantucket
Speaker 1: for four of her friends. So, like we said, she
Speaker 1: has the childhood friend Tatum, who grew up on Nantucket
Speaker 1: with Hollis and they considered themselves sisters. So she actually
Speaker 1: moved into Tatum's home after her mom passed away, so
Speaker 1: they have grown up very very close. But Tatum still
Speaker 1: lives on Nantucket. And so Hollis is now in New York.
Speaker 1: Her work and her you know, family have taken her
Speaker 1: in lots of different places, and Tatum still is in
Speaker 1: her hometown. And I think that that is an interesting dynamic,
Speaker 1: right when we see friendships where there is this history,
Speaker 1: but somebody has moved away and created a very different life,
Speaker 1: whereas the other person is still kind of in the
Speaker 1: hometown and maybe has not been exposed to as much
Speaker 1: as the other friend. And so we definitely see some
Speaker 1: tension there. Though it isn't always spoken, you could definitely
Speaker 1: feel it through the characters. There is this tension there
Speaker 1: about the differences in the different routes that their lives
Speaker 1: has taken them. And this is most pronounced with the
Speaker 1: introduction of which is Regina Hall's character. So drew Anne
Speaker 1: is the college friend. She is a high powered agent.
Speaker 1: She is managing a tennis star who we see there
Speaker 1: is some she's canceled by the internet because she makes
Speaker 1: a comment around this tennis star wo needs to take
Speaker 1: a break and she says like, oh, this is not
Speaker 1: a struggle for her. She doesn't have mental health concerns,
Speaker 1: and she faces some backlash there. But drew Anne and
Speaker 1: Tatum clearly have some tension. It feels like more from
Speaker 1: Tatum's side because in a lot of ways it feels
Speaker 1: like she has been replaced by drew Anne. I think
Speaker 1: that that is what Tatum is feeling. And it also
Speaker 1: feels like there is some tension related to the wedding.
Speaker 1: I guess Drew Ayne made a comment about some shoes
Speaker 1: that Tatum was wearing, like oh, are you planning to
Speaker 1: wear those? And Tatum kind of took that as if
Speaker 1: she was not good enough right now. I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: there were already some feelings therefore Tatum around like I said,
Speaker 1: the being replaced by this new friend, is there still
Speaker 1: space for me in Hollis's life? But there is definitely
Speaker 1: some underlying tension there, and you see periods of it
Speaker 1: boiling over in the relationship between Tatum and Duane. Now Tatum,
Speaker 1: when we talk about going back to like what are
Speaker 1: people's primary coping mechanisms, what we see from Tatum is
Speaker 1: that she is very avoidant. Right, So, what we learned
Speaker 1: throughout the show with her is that she's having a
Speaker 1: health scare and mom died of breast cancer and she
Speaker 1: has gone in for her mammogram and they found a
Speaker 1: lump and so what a lot of what we see
Speaker 1: throughout the show is her waiting on the results of this,
Speaker 1: but she does not necessarily disclose this very early on.
Speaker 1: She is kind of sitting on the results and not
Speaker 1: really wanting to kind of introduce this topic to Hollis
Speaker 1: and the other women right now. Hollis is, of course
Speaker 1: the person she has the closer relationship with, but she
Speaker 1: is really not wanting to face this right and really
Speaker 1: wanting to kind of have this be something that she's
Speaker 1: dealing with herself and with her husband, until eventually we
Speaker 1: do see that she has to tell Holliss about what's
Speaker 1: going on. When we think about drew Anne's primary coping strategy,
Speaker 1: it is throwing herself into work, right, which I think
Speaker 1: is a pattern many of us can recognize, probably in ourselves,
Speaker 1: that if I just throw all of my energy into
Speaker 1: working and doing what I need to do and really
Speaker 1: focusing on my career, then I don't have to deal
Speaker 1: with all these other things in my life. Now, we
Speaker 1: also see drew Anne has a history of being a
Speaker 1: college athlete. She played soccer, when it sounds like her
Speaker 1: career was ended after an injury, and so we also
Speaker 1: see throughout the show that she has some lingering leg
Speaker 1: issues related to I'm guessing her career as a soccer player,
Speaker 1: but that she also wants to downplay this, and I
Speaker 1: think that that is something that is also important for
Speaker 1: us to pay attention to for our own lives, right,
Speaker 1: Like how often we will ignore signs from our bodies
Speaker 1: or downplay things until it gets too severe when we
Speaker 1: really cannot ignore it anymore. So that's Drew Anne's primary
Speaker 1: coping strategy, is that she is throwing herself into work
Speaker 1: and really ignoring some red flags that her body is
Speaker 1: giving her. And then Brooke is the mom friend, right,
Speaker 1: so it seems like Brooke and Hollis have developed a
Speaker 1: relationship through the relationship that their kids have had, are
Speaker 1: just going to similar schools, and so Brooke is the
Speaker 1: not newest friend, but she is a newer friend to
Speaker 1: the circle, and it feels like there is a more
Speaker 1: tenuous relationship between Hollis and Brooke. Now, Brooke, I think
Speaker 1: has come into more of the limelight because she was
Speaker 1: available the night that Matthew died, Like she was the
Speaker 1: one who was at the hospital with Hollis, and so
Speaker 1: it feels like there has been more significance and more
Speaker 1: maybe gravity added to that relationship as by virtue of
Speaker 1: her being there throughout Mathew passing and being there for
Speaker 1: the funeral and really being there to kind of hold
Speaker 1: Hollis up. But it doesn't feel like there is the
Speaker 1: same history there, and so I think throughout the show,
Speaker 1: what we see is that Brooke is trying to figure
Speaker 1: out where does she actually fit given that she doesn't
Speaker 1: have the same history that drou Anne and Tatum have
Speaker 1: with Hollis. When we think about the primary coping strategy
Speaker 1: for Brooke, it feels like shopping is a big one
Speaker 1: for her. Right so we kind of are introduced to
Speaker 1: Brooke when she is taking in all of these packages
Speaker 1: from her porch that she's just ordered and then once
Speaker 1: she finds out that she's invited to this weekend on Nantucket,
Speaker 1: her immediate response is, Oh, I'm going to need all
Speaker 1: new outfits, right, So it definitely feels like Brooke is
Speaker 1: kind of coping with the things in her life through shopping.
Speaker 1: What we find out throughout the show also is that
Speaker 1: Brooke is struggling in her marriage. So her husband has
Speaker 1: been accused of being inappropriate I think with an intern
Speaker 1: in the office, and so it feels like she is
Speaker 1: kind of questioning what's actually happening in her marriage, but
Speaker 1: also wanting to present to the world that things are okay.
Speaker 1: I also find out, though, is that Brooke is questioning
Speaker 1: her sexuality right, And so there are lots of instances
Speaker 1: throughout the show where we see her kind of introduce
Speaker 1: this conversation and kind of test it out with other
Speaker 1: people to see their reaction, and by the end we
Speaker 1: find out that she has made the decision to leave
Speaker 1: her marriage and explore a relationship with a woman, right,
Speaker 1: Like she kind of leans fully into that. But I
Speaker 1: thought that that was a really interesting nuance that added
Speaker 1: to the character, which was really good to see and
Speaker 1: think about, Like what it might look like you know,
Speaker 1: I think we often think about kind of exploring sexuality
Speaker 1: as something that happens early on in life. But the
Speaker 1: truth is that you can explore your sexuality at any
Speaker 1: point in your life. And so I thought it was
Speaker 1: really cool that we saw a woman in middle age
Speaker 1: think about like, oh, is this something that I'm interested in?
Speaker 1: What might it be like to pursue that. So very
Speaker 1: interesting character development there with Brooke. Now, if you follow
Speaker 1: me on social media, and you absolutely should, because I
Speaker 1: talk to a little bit about this on Instagram. I'm
Speaker 1: at hello, doctor Joy. But one of the main questions
Speaker 1: that I had leaving this series was why in the
Speaker 1: world would Gig actually show up to this weekend at
Speaker 1: Hollis's house. So Gig is the newest quote unquote friend
Speaker 1: in this circle, but Gig is someone who Hollis has
Speaker 1: met through the internet, so she is a follower of
Speaker 1: her page and they have connected online after Matthew passed.
Speaker 1: Now what we find out, of course, very early on,
Speaker 1: is that Gig actually was having an affair with Matthew
Speaker 1: before he passed and connected with Hollis after he passed
Speaker 1: for some reasons that feel unknown. I think when I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about like, what in the world would lead gig
Speaker 1: to actually showing up to this woman's house after she
Speaker 1: knows she has had the affair and Hollis does not
Speaker 1: know this. I'm led to think about a couple of
Speaker 1: different things, right, So one, I think she wanted to
Speaker 1: suss out out like who was this person that Matthew
Speaker 1: had built alike with, right, so a comparison with okay,
Speaker 1: the wife versus the mistress, and like, who is this
Speaker 1: person that he chose? Now, what we do find out
Speaker 1: later in the show is that though they had the
Speaker 1: affair and Matthew was actually leaving the day of his
Speaker 1: accident he died in a car accident, he was leaving
Speaker 1: to go to the airport with and meet Gigi, I
Speaker 1: think in Paris. But he has like second thoughts as
Speaker 1: he's having a conversation leaving the house with Hollis, and
Speaker 1: I think is reconsidering actually working on his marriage again.
Speaker 1: And so what we find out is that on the way,
Speaker 1: while like briefly I guess before the accident happens, he
Speaker 1: actually called Gigi to let her know that he was
Speaker 1: planning to go back to his wife and that he
Speaker 1: was ending things with her. And so I also think
Speaker 1: that a part of what Gigi was wanting to do
Speaker 1: was to kind of see, Okay, who is this person
Speaker 1: that he chose over me? But I also think that
Speaker 1: there was a deep longing for closeness to Hollis that
Speaker 1: Gig it feels like maybe had, right So, it feels
Speaker 1: like there is not a lot of support necessarily in
Speaker 1: Gig's life. We do see that she has a friendship
Speaker 1: with someone so Gig is a pilot. We see that
Speaker 1: she has a friendship with someone who is a flight
Speaker 1: attendant for her same airline, but we don't know very
Speaker 1: much else about her life, right so it does feel
Speaker 1: like there is a loneliness, and it does feel like
Speaker 1: in another world, in some other very different circumstance, she
Speaker 1: and Hollis actually could have had a relationship, right Like,
Speaker 1: it feels like she could have been someone who became
Speaker 1: Hollis's newest friend in this circle, but under these circumstances
Speaker 1: is incredibly suspect. So another part of what I feel
Speaker 1: like Gigi was attempting to do in going to this weekend,
Speaker 1: I actually think that even Gigi did feel for Hollis
Speaker 1: right like she wanted to be there to try to
Speaker 1: like comfort her in her grief, But of course this
Speaker 1: is very complicated because you have had an affair with
Speaker 1: this woman's husband. So I think that in some ways
Speaker 1: she wanted to be there to support, but it was
Speaker 1: also very complicated. I also think that this was a
Speaker 1: way of Gigi getting some closure on this situation, because
Speaker 1: this is an affair that likely not a lot of
Speaker 1: people knew about, and so what does that look like
Speaker 1: to have this grief that you really can't be public
Speaker 1: about because you were involved in a relationship with somebody who,
Speaker 1: like societally, would not be acceptable, right, And so I
Speaker 1: think that this was a way of her processing her
Speaker 1: own grief through supporting Hollis. But I also think that
Speaker 1: eventually it got to a place where she actually wanted
Speaker 1: to try to be there for Hollis and did actually
Speaker 1: care for her as a friend, even though the situation
Speaker 1: through which she was introduced to Hollis was definitely not
Speaker 1: on up and up. But I still think it was
Speaker 1: very curious that she made the decision to go to
Speaker 1: the weekend in the first place. There is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a breakdown of the characters that we meet here.
Speaker 1: Now I want to move into talking about maybe more
Speaker 1: of the deeper themes that I kind of saw emerge
Speaker 1: from watching the five Star Weekend. And of course one
Speaker 1: of the biggest is grief. Right, So, we of course
Speaker 1: have the immediate grief of Hollis losing her husband, Matthew
Speaker 1: and the car accident. So what does the grief mean
Speaker 1: for her? What does the grief mean for Caroline, her daughter,
Speaker 1: and so of course they are trying to figure out
Speaker 1: where this story starts. Is six months after the car accident, right,
Speaker 1: so they've had six months of living without dad and husband.
Speaker 1: I think when we think about like the timeline for grief,
Speaker 1: and we know there is no timeline, but six months
Speaker 1: post losing your husband feels very very still sudden, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that anybody would necessarily expect that she
Speaker 1: would be back up in front of her online community.
Speaker 1: One of the earliest scenes that we see with her
Speaker 1: that she's doing like a morning show. She's throwing herself
Speaker 1: back into work kind of after her husband's laws, and
Speaker 1: it feels like something else that we see as a
Speaker 1: way for her to manage her grief is that she
Speaker 1: is really an expert at compartmentalizing, right, Like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can go do this thing, and then I can tend
Speaker 1: to the grief afterwards. We also hear her talk about
Speaker 1: this folder that she has created on her computer that
Speaker 1: is almost like a checklist or a to do list
Speaker 1: of how to manage grief right now. Of course, there
Speaker 1: are lots of different resources and things that can be
Speaker 1: helpful to manage the more difficult parts of a grief experience,
Speaker 1: but the truth is that a lot of it is
Speaker 1: just sitting with the yucky, difficult, really sad, sad experiences
Speaker 1: of losing somebody who has been important to you. You
Speaker 1: the really difficult experiences of sitting with yourself after you've
Speaker 1: lost someone. And so all of the checklists that we
Speaker 1: think we might be able to complete, all of the
Speaker 1: breathing exercises, and all of the things right like, those
Speaker 1: things can be helpful, but there is no recipe, no
Speaker 1: kind of nice bow that we can tie on the
Speaker 1: experience of grief. And I think that that is what
Speaker 1: we see a lot of with Hollis throughout this experience.
Speaker 1: You know, So she plans this weekend as a way
Speaker 1: of her really it feels like distracting herself from the grief,
Speaker 1: and really, you know, maybe wanting some support, but it
Speaker 1: isn't as if you know, and of course she has
Speaker 1: like planned out this perfect itinerary of things for them
Speaker 1: to do, and it doesn't necessarily include like any like
Speaker 1: downtime for her to just talk with her friends about
Speaker 1: how she's feeling, which Tatum calls to her attention, right like, Hey,
Speaker 1: you brought us all here, You brought the most important
Speaker 1: people in your life together, and it feels like you
Speaker 1: don't actually want to talk about this, right, And I
Speaker 1: think it brings up an interesting question because you know,
Speaker 1: Tatum kind of being her longest standing friend and already
Speaker 1: supporting her through an experience of brief right because she
Speaker 1: moved in with her after her mom has I think
Speaker 1: she kind of knows maybe a little bit more than
Speaker 1: the rest of the group around what kind of support
Speaker 1: Hollis actually needs. But does she actually want to lean
Speaker 1: into it? And I think for Hollis the answer is no,
Speaker 1: she doesn't. But Tatum, I think, and the rest of
Speaker 1: the group to certain extents also recognize, Hey, like, you
Speaker 1: haven't really talked about this. And I think it was
Speaker 1: also really interesting that at one point we hear Holli
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that she felt more comfortable talking
Speaker 1: to Gigi, who is the newest friend, than maybe she
Speaker 1: did talking to her friends who had been there for
Speaker 1: longer parts of her life, right, And I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's necessarily uncommon, you know, especially when you are
Speaker 1: dealing with something so difficult, Maybe it feels easier to
Speaker 1: talk to people who don't have all of the history,
Speaker 1: who don't know maybe the complicated stories of what has happened.
Speaker 1: That sometimes it just feels a little easier to talk
Speaker 1: to somebody who's a stranger. But I do think that
Speaker 1: Duanne and Tatum, and maybe to even some point Brooke
Speaker 1: felt something related to the fact that she found it
Speaker 1: easier to talk to gg More from our conversation after
Speaker 1: the break, so, you know, we see Hollis talk about like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you want me to talk about it, fine, I can
Speaker 1: talk about it, but she still isn't really wanting to
Speaker 1: go there. Now we do eventually see after she finds
Speaker 1: out about the affair and all of those things, we
Speaker 1: see her go a little further. But I think that
Speaker 1: she is a great example of how we can have
Speaker 1: all of these feelings, especially related to greed, that we
Speaker 1: just refuse to deal with and kind of keep pushing
Speaker 1: and pushing until they pop up in lots of different ways. Right,
Speaker 1: So we see her basically have this meltdown in the
Speaker 1: kitchen where she's breaking things and throwing things on the floor,
Speaker 1: And I think that sometimes, though that may be an
Speaker 1: extreme example, that is an example of what can happen
Speaker 1: when we try to bottle grief up and try to
Speaker 1: avoid dealing with it in lots of different ways until
Speaker 1: it finally demands to have a voice and a presence
Speaker 1: in our lives. And so that's one of the ways
Speaker 1: that it can look. So, of course, like I said,
Speaker 1: we do have the grief related to the loss of Matthew,
Speaker 1: but I think that there is grief that we see
Speaker 1: in lots of different ways in throughout the show. And
Speaker 1: one of the ways that I think grief presents is
Speaker 1: in the way that your relationships transition throughout your life. Right, So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that there is kind of the
Speaker 1: playful banter with Tatum Andrew Ayne around who is Hollis's
Speaker 1: best friend, But I think that there is grief related
Speaker 1: to your best friend moving on, going to college in
Speaker 1: a different place, and developing relationships with other people that
Speaker 1: you aren't necessarily a part of and so there is
Speaker 1: a grief related to those transitions and those changes that
Speaker 1: happen in our lives related to our friendship. I don't
Speaker 1: think that we always call it that, and I think
Speaker 1: we've talked about this here on the podcast before. I
Speaker 1: definitely talked about it in Sister the Heels, where I
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, our relationships change, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of our reactions to those changes are often
Speaker 1: grief reactions, but we don't actually recognize it in that
Speaker 1: because we don't actually recognize it as that because we
Speaker 1: typically only think about griefs as related to the loss
Speaker 1: or the death of someone. But grief reactions can actually
Speaker 1: be responses that we have to the loss of anything
Speaker 1: that felt important to us. And so when a friendship changes,
Speaker 1: even if we're happy, right like typically you're happy if
Speaker 1: your friend gets a big promotion or it goes off
Speaker 1: and gets married or has a baby, like, you're typically
Speaker 1: happy for them, but at the same time, you are
Speaker 1: holding space for the ways that your relationship now has
Speaker 1: to change because of what else has happened. Right, So,
Speaker 1: somebody who you were talking to all day, all the time,
Speaker 1: whenever there was a free moment, maybe they don't have
Speaker 1: that same kind of time now and things have to change,
Speaker 1: right And so as much as you understand and can
Speaker 1: be happy for the changes that are happening, it also
Speaker 1: does introduce this different way of being with one another
Speaker 1: that can cause some grief. And so I think when
Speaker 1: we think about grief that we see in the show,
Speaker 1: it's not just related to Matthew. I think it is
Speaker 1: also related to the changes that we see in our friendships.
Speaker 1: But I also think that each of the characters had
Speaker 1: their own personal stories with grief, right, So Tatum and
Speaker 1: her health challenges, and I think thinking about what does
Speaker 1: that mean from my life? Is this going to be
Speaker 1: a terminal illness? She has a husband and a daughter
Speaker 1: and a grandchild, and so thinking about like anticipatory grief, right, like,
Speaker 1: if this is something that's going to be terminal, what
Speaker 1: does this mean for me? But also I think the
Speaker 1: grief related to maybe what she imagined her life to be,
Speaker 1: Like did she imagine that she would always be in
Speaker 1: Nantucket or did she have visions for her life doing
Speaker 1: something else. I think there's greed there. I think for
Speaker 1: Dreuanne there is grief related to we see her throughout
Speaker 1: the show try to figure out, like, Okay, where does
Speaker 1: my career go next? Right, So, after she is canceled
Speaker 1: by the Internet for her comments about mental health, I
Speaker 1: think it really introduces her to the idea of if
Speaker 1: I can be canceled so easily, and if my boss
Speaker 1: is willing to perhaps terminate me for something after I
Speaker 1: have done so much for the company and maybe made
Speaker 1: so much money and like put so much in my
Speaker 1: personal life on the back law for this job, then
Speaker 1: is just something that I'm really that invested in, right,
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes those kinds of things have to
Speaker 1: happen before we realize like, oh, I may need to
Speaker 1: reevaluate my relationship to this. And so I think there's
Speaker 1: grief for Dreuanne as it relates to the next phase
Speaker 1: of her career and kind of what has she given
Speaker 1: up to be at this place in her career. For Brooke,
Speaker 1: I think there is the loss of the relationship with
Speaker 1: her husband, right, and he has definitely made some choices
Speaker 1: that have led to her decision to leave. But I
Speaker 1: also think, you know, be given that she is somebody
Speaker 1: who it feels like is really focused on presentation and
Speaker 1: kind of what my family looks like to the world.
Speaker 1: That is also, of course a grief, right Like, even
Speaker 1: if you know you are leaving for under good circumstances
Speaker 1: and it is a good choice for you and your kids,
Speaker 1: there's also a grief related to having to leave the
Speaker 1: life that you built and the life that you kind
Speaker 1: of envision for yourself. But also, as she explores her sexuality,
Speaker 1: right like, even while it may be a good thing,
Speaker 1: is something that she's really excited about, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: there is also some trepidation and hesitancy about what does
Speaker 1: this mean for my life? Right Like? Is this something
Speaker 1: that I'm going to really dive all the way into?
Speaker 1: How do I talk about this to my kids? Like,
Speaker 1: there's still a lot that you are negotiating and leaving behind.
Speaker 1: Even as you maybe walk into something that feels exciting
Speaker 1: to you, there still grief there. And then for Gigi,
Speaker 1: we already talked about this a little bit, but there
Speaker 1: is the grief related to losing Matthew and not being
Speaker 1: able to publicly claim that grief because of who she
Speaker 1: was in his life, right and not being able to
Speaker 1: necessarily have support around that. But I also think there's
Speaker 1: the grief now related to losing the relationship with Hollish, Right, So,
Speaker 1: of course after we find out about the affair, after
Speaker 1: she shares that, then Hollis of course does not want
Speaker 1: to have a relationship with her. And so even though
Speaker 1: she came into Hollis's life under the circumstance circumstance, I
Speaker 1: do feel like she actually did begin to develop friendship
Speaker 1: feelings for her, and so now to lose that on
Speaker 1: top of the loss of Matthew, who she you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like was kind of developing a vision of
Speaker 1: a future with. Now there is grief related to this
Speaker 1: person that you had spent so much time talking to
Speaker 1: and kind of supporting and maybe supporting you that you
Speaker 1: now have to figure out, like, Okay, how do I
Speaker 1: get those needs? Men? So there's great there for her
Speaker 1: as well. One of the other themes that I think
Speaker 1: is very visible, very kind of present in what we
Speaker 1: see happening in the Five Star Weekend, And we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about this kind of as I talked
Speaker 1: about the individual journeys. But one of the other things
Speaker 1: that I think we see is a real reckoning with
Speaker 1: self through these characters, right, So a transition between kind
Speaker 1: of who they were before this weekend and who they
Speaker 1: were afterwards. And I think that that's also really poigning
Speaker 1: right to think about, like what can happen in the
Speaker 1: course of a weekend when you put a group of
Speaker 1: women together. Again a throwback to the sisterhood heels. I
Speaker 1: also thought that there was a very strong kind of
Speaker 1: sisterhood lens across this whole weekend, right across the whole show.
Speaker 1: But I also think that it really shows the power
Speaker 1: of what can happen when you are locked in together
Speaker 1: for a weekend, and the kinds of conversations that can happen,
Speaker 1: especially when people are not use the real world language,
Speaker 1: but start getting really real with one another, right. And
Speaker 1: I think that that is often what happens when we
Speaker 1: take trips like this or we go to a retreat,
Speaker 1: is that we have left the trappings of our daily life.
Speaker 1: You're not in the same routine. You're having conversations maybe
Speaker 1: that you aren't typically having, and so it really does
Speaker 1: sometimes cause you to get very familiar with yourself, right,
Speaker 1: and to really confront some parts of yourself that maybe
Speaker 1: are only visible to you when it is reflected to
Speaker 1: other people. And I think that that is a lot
Speaker 1: of what was happening throughout the weekend. Across the show,
Speaker 1: what we saw was people really having to reckon with
Speaker 1: new ideas of themselves. Right. So for Hollis, I think
Speaker 1: she is reckoning with of course life post her husband,
Speaker 1: but also this very persistent focus on presentation, like I said, right,
Speaker 1: and really being more concerned with the looks of something
Speaker 1: as opposed to the reality of a situation. I think
Speaker 1: that that was the big reckoning for her, and also
Speaker 1: the links that she would go to to kind of
Speaker 1: make things just right, even to the extent of abandoning herself. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of what we saw in flashbacks
Speaker 1: but also throughout the weekend was her wanting to make
Speaker 1: sure that other people were more comfortable than she was, right,
Speaker 1: and how often that that was a pattern throughout her life,
Speaker 1: and so it feels like that is what she is
Speaker 1: really kind of reckoning with on the other side of
Speaker 1: this weekend. For Drouanne, I think it was again kind
Speaker 1: of reckoning with who she has been as a career
Speaker 1: woman and the effort and energy she has really put
Speaker 1: into her career and what does that look like now
Speaker 1: on the other side of this canceling, what it lends
Speaker 1: to is that it feels like she's going to sew
Speaker 1: her own thing and maybe aim to do things differently
Speaker 1: and to have a different, more gentle touch maybe with
Speaker 1: the people that she represents. But it definitely feels like
Speaker 1: she is reckoning with this idea of having put so
Speaker 1: much energy into something else and then what has been
Speaker 1: the pay y'all for Tatum? I think she is reckoning
Speaker 1: with her health, right And what does this mean? You know?
Speaker 1: Kind of even at the end and we see that
Speaker 1: she isn't still being completely forthcoming with Hollis about her help.
Speaker 1: She's gotten information from the doctor that she doesn't share
Speaker 1: with Hollis, and so I think it will be reckoning
Speaker 1: with her around what does support actually look like? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: it feels like she is very much the person who
Speaker 1: shows up for other people but has real trouble asking
Speaker 1: for help and allowing people to show up for her
Speaker 1: in those same ways. And so what does it mean
Speaker 1: as somebody who maybe will have to undergo treatment and
Speaker 1: maybe not be able to take care of herself in
Speaker 1: the same ways. What will it look like for her
Speaker 1: to maybe be in a position where she is maybe
Speaker 1: needing to ask for more help more from our conversation
Speaker 1: after the break, and then for Brook the reckoning will
Speaker 1: be on the other side of this weekend, like what
Speaker 1: does it look like now to have left my marriage
Speaker 1: and to be exploring my sexuality maybe in a relationship
Speaker 1: with a woman, whether it's the woman that she met
Speaker 1: on Nantucket or someone else. It definitely feels like she
Speaker 1: is reckoning with this path version of her life versus
Speaker 1: this new one now that she's very excited to explore.
Speaker 1: And then for Gigi, I think the reckoning with herself
Speaker 1: will come on the other side of this weekend of
Speaker 1: what did I do? Right? Like, what does it mean
Speaker 1: that I had an affair? What does it mean that
Speaker 1: I then got close to his widow? What does it
Speaker 1: mean that I then showed up there? Right? Like? How
Speaker 1: do you make sense of all of that? And what
Speaker 1: does that mean now for the pieces of your life
Speaker 1: that you now have to put back together? Right? Because
Speaker 1: I do think, like I alluded to earlier, it does
Speaker 1: feel like this getting close to Hollis really spoke to
Speaker 1: the lack of connections maybe that she had in other
Speaker 1: places of her life and now that she doesn't have
Speaker 1: this relationship with Hollis, like, what is that going to
Speaker 1: look like, right, like, how does she manage that greed
Speaker 1: for herself? So the reckoning with self, I think, was
Speaker 1: also another major theme that I saw throughout the five
Speaker 1: Star weekend. I also thought it was just a really cool,
Speaker 1: like I mentioned, you know, like sisterhood is the foundation
Speaker 1: of the entire story, But I do think it introduced
Speaker 1: these interesting conversations around what does it mean to bring
Speaker 1: together different people from different parts of your life? Right?
Speaker 1: And I think about, you know, so often we have
Speaker 1: situations where we kind of only do things with our
Speaker 1: work friends, or we only do things with our childhood friends,
Speaker 1: or we only do things with our college friends, and
Speaker 1: I think that there's a place for that. But I
Speaker 1: think what we saw here is what it might look
Speaker 1: like to have all those people together, right, and to
Speaker 1: even think about for yourself, like who are you to
Speaker 1: all of these different people, because it's likely that they're
Speaker 1: different versions or at least different parts of yourself that
Speaker 1: maybe feel more present in the relationships with all of
Speaker 1: these different people. And so as much as it, of
Speaker 1: course I think makes for some drama, as we saw
Speaker 1: between Drew Ane and Tatum, though that doesn't always have
Speaker 1: to be the case, I do think it lends to
Speaker 1: some interesting questions around who are we in our groups
Speaker 1: of friends and what might it look like to bring
Speaker 1: together different people from different parts of our lives, maybe
Speaker 1: under different circumstances. But what would that look like? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: Is this something that you maybe are even thinking of
Speaker 1: doing for yourself or for your friend circle? Right Like,
Speaker 1: what would it need to go to a house on
Speaker 1: Nantucket or a house wherever, kind of have a weekend
Speaker 1: just designed to really take care of yourself, but also
Speaker 1: maybe to deepen the relationships with other people. I think
Speaker 1: it is also an interesting question kind of as a
Speaker 1: psychologist watching this and as somebody who is interested in
Speaker 1: doing retreats for groups of friends. Right if Hollis had
Speaker 1: called me and said, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this
Speaker 1: retreat for a group of my friends. I want you
Speaker 1: to come in and do like a workshop or something,
Speaker 1: Thinking about like how I maybe would have designed that
Speaker 1: weekend now, of course, knowing what we know, knowing what
Speaker 1: we know about Hollis and like these other people, I
Speaker 1: definitely think that I would have encouraged more downtime for
Speaker 1: conversations as opposed to the by the minute planning of
Speaker 1: all of the activities because I think that that was
Speaker 1: again Hollis's attempt to avoid dealing with some really difficult feelings.
Speaker 1: So I definitely would have encouraged her to have more
Speaker 1: time to actually spend just talking with one another and
Speaker 1: actually checking in with one another. Right when I think
Speaker 1: that they eventually got to that, when we see the
Speaker 1: scene where they're in the bathroom passing around the bottle
Speaker 1: shampoo as a talking stick, that is what I would
Speaker 1: have wanted to see earlier in the retreat experience. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: it may have been better where it fell, right because
Speaker 1: we now see that defenses are down. This is after
Speaker 1: the meltdown in the kitchen has happened, and so maybe
Speaker 1: people are more comfortable talking at that point. But I
Speaker 1: think that there could have If I were designing this weekend,
Speaker 1: I would have had multiple touch points for open conversation
Speaker 1: as opposed to okay, everything is planned to the minute
Speaker 1: and there is no real time for downtime. So thinking
Speaker 1: about what that might look like for me to plan
Speaker 1: a weekend for somebody like Hollis and her friends or
Speaker 1: another group of friends, I think if I had to
Speaker 1: wrap up with thinking about like a piece of advice,
Speaker 1: I would offer us to their friend group, I would
Speaker 1: encourage them to maybe make this annual kind of experience,
Speaker 1: or at least a more regular experience, because I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that we saw in the show
Speaker 1: is that Drouanne and Hollis did have a weekend where
Speaker 1: they had spent some time together years ago, and then
Speaker 1: life got busy, right like Hollis's blog took off, Duanne
Speaker 1: climbed the career letter and her job, and so then
Speaker 1: it became very difficult for them to schedule that. And
Speaker 1: so I think that is an experience that many of
Speaker 1: us have, right, Like we have these really good intentions
Speaker 1: of her and girls trips every year, and then things
Speaker 1: happen and we can't stick to the schedule. But I
Speaker 1: think if there were one piece of advice I would
Speaker 1: give to the group is to put this back on
Speaker 1: the calendar and make it a priority and protect it
Speaker 1: just like you protect all the other things in your calendar.
Speaker 1: Because what we see is that then it becomes more
Speaker 1: difficult to ask for help, or there's been so much
Speaker 1: time this passed that you didn't realize this thing happened
Speaker 1: with this person, right, And if there are more regular
Speaker 1: touch points, then you don't necessarily see those lapses, and
Speaker 1: I think that is really important for women's mental help. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: as we saw through this show, we do realize how
Speaker 1: much strength comes from us being able to rely on
Speaker 1: one another, to laugh with one another, to really show
Speaker 1: support for one another. And I think making sure that
Speaker 1: we are building that into our schedules makes it so
Speaker 1: that it is not always like a crisis intervention kind
Speaker 1: of thing, but it is more just a regular maintenance
Speaker 1: kind of opportunity for us. And so that is the
Speaker 1: advice that I would give to Hollis and this group
Speaker 1: of friends if they were actually people, is to make
Speaker 1: a more concerted effort to have regular touch points with
Speaker 1: one another like this. Right, so maybe every July you
Speaker 1: go to Nantucket and spend a weekend together, or maybe
Speaker 1: it rotates, or even if it can't be every year, like,
Speaker 1: maybe it is every two years. And then on the
Speaker 1: off years we make a more considerative effort to do
Speaker 1: something virtually, but to not let there be so much
Speaker 1: time that passes before you're able to get your group together,
Speaker 1: because we saw the incredible amount of support and transformation
Speaker 1: that can happen, and when you have the designated time
Speaker 1: and space to really just focus on being with one another.
Speaker 1: So that's the advice that I would give to this
Speaker 1: group if I had to give this show a different
Speaker 1: name besides Five Star Weekend. Knowing now what I know
Speaker 1: about it, I think the Secrets of the Island could
Speaker 1: be a good one, right because we saw that they
Speaker 1: all came in with varying levels of secrets that they
Speaker 1: brought to Nantucket, and so I think the Secrets of
Speaker 1: the Eye could be a good one. Maybe feels a
Speaker 1: little more scandalous than actually what happened, but it feels
Speaker 1: like the best one I could come up with right now.
Speaker 1: If you have already watched Five Star Weekend, I would
Speaker 1: love to hear your kind of thoughts around people's different
Speaker 1: coping strategies that you saw, maybe what it even introduced
Speaker 1: into your own personal reflections of friendships, right Like, are
Speaker 1: you thinking about your friendships differently based on what we
Speaker 1: saw on Five Star Weekend, or you maybe planning a
Speaker 1: retreat for you and your girls based on what you saw,
Speaker 1: or maybe just the idea kind of sparked because of
Speaker 1: the show. I would love to hear your thoughts and
Speaker 1: for you to weigh in on the five Star Weekend.
Speaker 1: Like I say, it is one of my favorite watches
Speaker 1: of the recent history. So if you have not already
Speaker 1: two din, you can find it on peacock. All the
Speaker 1: episodes are available I think yeah, typically around thirty thirty
Speaker 1: five minutes, so it's not a long watch. I think
Speaker 1: I finished it in like two days, maybe even one
Speaker 1: I can't quite remember. But it definitely is something that
Speaker 1: is worthy to add to your watch list, so definitely
Speaker 1: check it out. Did you know that you could leave
Speaker 1: us a voicemail with your questions or suggestions for the podcast?
Speaker 1: If you have topics that you'd like us to discuss,
Speaker 1: some movies or shows that you'd like us to review,
Speaker 1: drop us a message at Memo dot fm sash Therapy
Speaker 1: for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind.
Speaker 1: We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist
Speaker 1: directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com stanch directory. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to follow us on Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls.
Speaker 1: You can join us in our Patreon community at community
Speaker 1: dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com for exclusive updates, behind
Speaker 1: the scenes content, and much more. This episode was produced
Speaker 1: by Elise Ellis, Indechubu and Bria Moseley. Editing was done
Speaker 1: by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me
Speaker 1: again this week. I'll look forward to continuing this conversation
Speaker 1: with you all real soon. Take it care