We argued about Team Lawrence vs Team Daniel, cursed out Issa through our TV screen, and sobbed at the friendship bond between the four central women characters of Insecure because the show felt real. It connected with us in a way that felt deeper than television — and a Vulture discussion with Insecure writer’s room shows that much of the show’s world was drawn from the real one we all have horrible dating lives in.
In the writers’ room discussion, Issa Rae explained how since the inception of the show, it was important to eschew the exaggerated nature of typical sitcom characters and “keep the show grounded” in authentic portrayals of humans. Doing so required pulling from real-life experiences make characters feel real. Issa scurrying off after seeing Molly dine at the Merkato restaurant at the end of the Season 4’s seventh episode, after the two had a falling out at Issa’s block party, actually happened to Insecure writer Laura Kittrell. In the same episode, regarding Molly’s argument with Andrew’s Asian-American brother about selective racism, Insecure’s only Asian-American writer Jason Lew wrote the scene from his own personal conversations with his Black wife about the relationship between Black and Asian communities.
