SPOILER ALERT.
So I’ll admit, I’m not quite going into watching Rumor Has It with a blank slate. There are a few things that you should know first; Rumour Has It was conceptualized and written by Damilola Elebe, the same person who wrote your other favourite Ndani show, Skinny Girl In Transit (my fave is Gidi Up).
And while I loved Skinny Girl In Transit, or rather Ngozi Nwosu in particular, I felt that the male leads were a little too steeped in fantasy for me. I’m hoping that pitfall doesn’t happen here either.
Obi Obi is the biggest vlogger in the country (probably referencing a certain Mrs Makinwa) and has built her reputation around delivering the ‘news’ first and unbiased.
We see her prepping for her show and like ten seconds in we get our first foreshadowing when her assistant tells her frantically during a high-powered walk scene that her mother and sister are desperately trying to reach her.
*Commercial break*
When you want to flip your weave but you have home training.
*Okay, we’re back again.*
She shushes them in classic diva style and does the show.
I gotta ask though, why can’t Uru Eke pronounce ‘Amebo’ properly, why does she have an accent?
WHYYYYYYY?
Anyhow sha, Toni Tones as Jennifer (who looks snatched for the gods by the way), Obi’s best friend comes to break the news that Obi’s husband has gone and gotten someone pregnant and sent her to the abroad to go and born.
Jennifer: I have something to tell you.
Obi: Tell me.
Jennifer: I dont know how to tell you.
GURRRLLLL?
And then we get the longest pre-faint sequence in the history of cinema, complete with ominous music and a rapidly increasing heartbeat soundtrack, and after all that, Obi still gives us that classic Nollywood faint.
She wakes up and Jennifer offers to drive her home, and I sigh with relief, hoping that the klutziness is done with.
I was so wrong.
We get the clumsiest scene of the episode as Jennifer drives Obi home. She turns on the radio, knowing as the show has graciously told us several times that ‘everyone’ is talking about Obi’s husband’s sleeping around and changes the dial from four perfectly good radio stations playing nondescript music, to the one station on the entire band that is talking about Obi.
And then Jennifer makes a face that is supposed to be horrified but looks like she swallowed a gnat and gives one watery as hell apology.
I think I rolled my eyes so far back I gave myself a concussion.
Obi finally gets home and confronts her husband, but not before giving us a Annalise Keating style ‘removing my wig scene’.
After doing big girl outside and you hear that your mother-in-law is around.
She confronts him, he admits his infidelity and she begs. This is the first scene where we see why Uru Eke was chosen to carry the show, she gives such a believable performance of despair and her husband, is so evil I wanted to punch him… Until she gives him that Nollywood slap.
After all the begging he left, what is this burnt pot of beans life?
For a first episode, Rumor has it is a disaster if we’re perfectly honest. The scenes went on forever and went to great lengths to show us things we honestly could have deduced for ourselves.
However we’ll give it the four episode test before we give a verdict.
LIFE LESSON: If you remove your wig and expose your Didi and your man still leaves, Izallova Jackie.
Over and out.
Semira Bello is lacking in conscience and lives her life on Youtube. When she isn’t watching Iroko TV, she is writing ‘serious’ articles about fashion and pretending to apply make up.
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