Recap: The Questioning of Your Soul in Queen Sugar’s “Your Distant Destiny”
Season 3, Episode 3 | Grade: 9.0/10
Director: Lauren Wolkstein | Writer: Erika L. Johnson
Coming off last week’s pulsating two-night season premiere, Queen Sugar’s “Your Distant Destiny” is a testing of the soul for each of the Bordelon siblings with Charley’s (Dawn Lyen Gardner) secret coming to the light prematurely.
Written by Erika L. Johnson, the episode was refreshing in keeping with the pace of the previous episodes yet turning the tables. In “Of Our Sojourn Here” we saw Nova (Rutina Wesley) take a bold step by resigning from her job at The Daily News and the shot of her looking off into her “distant destiny” with a glow only for it to knock her back. During a video session with her book editor Debra, who has heard of her departure, breaks the news that the articles surrounding incarceration, police brutality, and the New Orleans ninth ward are no longer available for her book. Nova visibly looked like she swallowed something bitter. Now faced with the obstacle of developing a new book proposal to be considered as her book deal now hangs in the opening.
Charley is juggling to wear the many hats since selling her sugar mill to the Sam Landry (David Jensen) which gives her a seat at the table with her foes but also interacting with black farmers as the face of “Queen Sugar” is a silent strain. She meets with a farmer and who have decided to break his contracts with Queen Sugar mill, revealing that they’ve leased their land for the past 30 years to Sam Landry (David Jensen) only to have it taken back. The disturbed look on her face said it all. She decides to waive any penalties fees for breaking their contracts and they praise her for her compassion which quietly makes her uneasy.
“Ernest was a good man, an honest man. You’re definitely your daddy’s daughter.”
Later when Ralph Angel (Kofi Siriboe) and Nova talk over lunch about the possibility of hiring a parolee to work the land, Ralph Angel is hesitant. Questioning his lateness, inexperience and choice of clothes, Nova teasingly holds a figurative mirror to her baby brother of his past ways. “So he was late and unprepared. That sounds vaguely familiar,” she says with a smile.
Ralph Angel: “Can’t afford to get this wrong. Might not be worth all the trouble.”
Nova: “Yeah, some folks said the same thing about you and they were dead wrong.”
When Miss Parthena (Rhonda Dents) arrived she happily expressed to Ralph Angel her gratitude for Charley securing fixed discounted rates for the next five years for the St. Josephine farmers. “Sam, he ain’t bothering us no more,” and “whatever Charley did to make that work…” were key remarks that sounded too good to be true for Nova. She immediately questioned what Charley did to magically make the Landrys back off since they’ve been sabotaging and feuding with the Bordelons for the past two seasons.
Echoing the intensity of season two’s “Line of Our Elders,” Nova immediately held a meeting at Aunt Vi’s (Tina Lifford) house at the infamous family table and immediately fired off at Charley: “Are you doing business with the Landrys?”
Reluctantly, she reveals that she sold business for a one percent equity into Landry Enterprises to the anger of Aunt Vi and Nova, whose words sting. Ralph Angel is vocal on seeing the bigger picture of eliminating the oppressor that would free all the farmers, him included, of their control.
“So you betray our family, get in bed with the enemy, and all you got was one percent? That’s what we’re worth?”
Just as Remy (Dondre L. Whitfield) questioned the two-faced tactics of dealing with the enemy and “shaking a black farmer’s hand and smile in their faces,” Nova can’t help but see the rigged system her sister is trying to unravel. The back and forth between them even Charley snapping at Hollywood (Omar J. Dorsey) that he’s not a Bordelon despite his loyalty of quitting a job Landry had ties in, the divide couldn’t have been more clear. Sidenote: I was proud of Micah (Nicholas L. Ashe) silently standing in the kitchen doorway, refusing to leave with Charley after overhearing this revelation.
“I am the only person at this table doing something, doing anything for daddy.” — Charley
“No, you need to sit down and finish explaining how you think sitting at a table with folks that have preyed on your family for generations makes good sense!” — Aunt Vi
Micah and Nova’s auntie-nephew relationship is something special to me when they two of them are together, especially how’s she’s so present with him. As the two talk in her kitchen (with him deciding to stay over to get space from Charley), he’s disturbed and disappointed with his mother’s lust for power and her “love for self.” Her seasoned outlook and activism intersecting with his blossoming self awakening and political views is so cohesive as he’s able to open up to her in ways he can’t with his parents. In many ways he sees in her what he wants to become and what he wishes his mother possessed.
“I don’t agree with your mom’s methods but this, this ain’t new. King, Malcolm, Medgar Evers, Whitney Young,” Nova says. “Some wanted to storm the gates others wanted a seat at the table but they all wanted the same thing. Dignity…freedom.”
He then sparks her brain by giving her the idea to utilize her platform to write about the black farmers — something that hit close to home as she’s the daughter of a sugar cane farmer. Surrounding her old poster of her idol, journalist Ida B. Wells, she pins subjects for her new book that are poignant:
- Slavery and black farmers
- History of African American farmers
- Sharecroppers to Landowners
- Bordelons as sharecroppers
- Bordelon legacy
- Charles Bordelon
- Forgotten legacies
- Feud for the farm
- Great Granddaddy Angel
- Plantations in St. Josephine
- Bordelons as slaves
The question is will Nova bringing light to the history of the Bordelons in her new book cross paths and effect Charley’s efforts of taking down the Landrys in the future?
Ralph Angel who has been sowing his oats with a new woman in the episode finally becomes conscious of his actions as Blue (Ethan Hutchinson) witness the woman getting dressed. It’s no secret that he’s been trying to cope with his breakup with his ex-fiance Darla (Bianca Lawson) last season who he’s been actively avoiding.
After giving the same parolee the opportunity to work with him on the farm — coming a long way from the single father who robbed a liquor store in the beginning of Queen Sugar — he’s forced to face his wounds. As Darla unexpectedly arrives, the two stare at one another in complete silence as Blue latches onto her in pure bliss, his biggest wound that has yet to heal.
Other Thoughts:
- My God how romantic was it when Hollywood surprised Aunt Vi with that gorgeous diamond ring?
- Nova’s final check with a note from her former editor Steve apologizing for not having her back was too little too late.
- Micah attending public school and uniting with the four teens who kneeled at the basketball game in the first episode continues to open his eyes to what it means to be black in the south. I feel that this may lead to Micah following their path with him coming into his own voice and political outlook which may be uneasy for Charley.
- Aunt Vi and Hollywood at his high school class reunion was a fun departure from the steady family drama. Hollywood’s overly flirtatious and desperate high school sweetheart calling Aunt Vi his mother triggered a “no she didn’t” in me. Luckily her face cracked when she asked Hollywood to dance and curved her by grabbing Aunt Vi’s hand saying, “Naw, I’m good. I got my forever dance partner right here.”
