At the final scene of season 1, Uncle Mac’s still a cad. And he’s fresh out of jail. Poppa Greenleaf is still struggling with his disease and trying to hide it… I think it’s Parkinson’s. But the cops come for his ass as they drop Uncle Mac off at the mansion doorstep. They warn Pastor to stick around town. Why? Because he’s accused of being complicit in the death of a church caretaker who died in a fire at an early church Bishop ran during the 1980s. Lady Mae’s father (who is also a cad we’re learning) told Grace that fire wasn’t an act of God as had been previously thought. Some Johnny struck a match but the match DIDN’T go out.
#RANDOM ALERT!!!!
Johnny struck a match and the match went out but the booty of the match was still sticking out! #childhoodmemories
— Meech Sumler (@Follow_MEech) March 2, 2012
Sidebar: I also heard this chant when I was a kid. I don’t know who I heard it from, where they got it from, if I repeated it or why I laughed at it. Also don’t know its origin, but I’d like to find out. I’d also like to take a match anatomy class to find out how and WHEN a match got a booty.
Anyway, back to this-here recap: Lady Mae still hates her daughter. Grace Greenleaf is still working at Calvary, while her brother has a brand new bag… at Triumph church, Calvary’s main competitor (Sidebar: As if it’s even sensical to talk about competition as folks work to get folks all gospeled-up for heaven? Puhleeze. If they’re all working for the same boss… everyone wins, right?)
With family like that, she may want to procure some enemies… they might treat her better.
I’ll try not to digress anymore. I’ll try.
Look here: Lady Mae has her bloomers in a bunch because she JUST found out what her hubby has been hiding from her for all these years. Last season, her spidey-sense told her it was something, but Lady Mae couldn’t put her finger on it. Bishop sure as heck didn’t spill the goods. Until the goods were forced from his hand.
Speaking of goods, Uncle Mac’s got the 411 on a bunch of folks in Memphis. Grace confronted him as he was leaving the family mansion and says “I don’t know what kind of deal you cut to get out of jail, but you’re going back.”
His reply? “Oh I’m not going anywhere, but home. It’s called deferred adjudication, pastor. I asked the bishop to speak on my behalf at my sentencing hearing, and he passed. So I was forced to pull some less holy extremes.”
“That’s impossible,” Grace says.
“Oh ye of little faith,” he replies. “You think your daddy’s the only one I got the gossip on, girrrrl? With what I know about folks around this town I could burn all Memphis to the ground and walk away nothing on my back but hot wind,” he growled… then kept stepping.
So what tawdry drama bricks are being kilned for season 2?
Jacob agrees to work for Basie Skanks, the pastor of Triumph Church. Triumph was going to build a community type center across the road from Calvary Church. But Pastor Skanks pulls a skanky move… At the groundbreaking he announces it’s the new location of Triumph 2… and Jacob Greenleaf will be the new pastor. ’Twas a surprise to Jacob AND his daddy who was in the audience. And pops is livid.
But wait, there’s more. But you have to watch it for yourself. Including Auntie Mavis’ drunken spiral after Mac pulls strings to get his SISTER’s club closed. It’s like she has no rudder anymore except the bottle and that young blues-playing thang she messiin’ with. It’s not overt with huffy-puffy steam laden panty pulling love scenes, but with a bottle, a bed and a half naked buff dude practicing in Mavis’ shade-pulled home, one makes assumptions. Poor Mavis. Done dirty by kin. With family like that, she may want to procure some enemies… they might treat her better.
Oh, and they’re fleshing out one of my favorite storylines—one that the fictitious Calvary and real life churches need to grapple with through meaningful discussion and love. The topic? Gay marriage. Carlton the choir director married his partner and Charity sang at his wedding. This isn’t displayed on screen, but it must’ve happened during the show’s hiatus. A board member mentioned it, and boy she ain’t too keen on that union. And by episode two, they’re coming for Carlton’s job. But Lady Mae is such a floral-smelling venomous snake, she couches his canning as a budgetary necessity. More on that next time. Back to Bishop’s drama.
Bishop explains the 1983 fire at First Baptist to Grace. It was Mac’s idea to “handle it.” Can’t help but wonder if Bishop knew what that child molesting cad meant when he said “handle it.”
Meantime, Lady Mae want’s her husband off the hook, so she goes to visit her dad in the hospital. It’s like he’s on his death bed… or death adjacent. He’s reminiscing how she used to be so sweet to him as a little girl…. She asks for his help. He agrees to help…IF she’s sweet to him again. Oh, I crinkled my face in horror as she leaned toward his wretched tail and kissed his lascivious death-bed having self on the lips. So THAT’S what SWEET means. That nasty-ass child molesting cad. Damn MacReady men. Mac’s “handle it” meant burn the bitc# down. Mr. MacReady’s “sweet to me” meant “let’s play house, my little daughter.” Ole nasty coot. Makes me wonder if Lady Mae knew Mac was molesting her daughter, Faith? She says not. But Lady Mae walked a similar path with her dad. Did she not realize her brother was cut from cad cloth? Does she realize she’s from that same textile?
This family is jacked up. But the DA dropped the case against Bishop Greenleaf because Lady Mae’s dad refused to testify. All that sweet must’ve put him in a sugar coma. All of a sudden. Bishop apologizes and swears he would never lie or hide anything from Lady Mae again. Her words tremble “Thank you,” and she kisses HIS lips and tucks the deception into her heart.