SPOILER ALERT
If you haven’t seen this episode of Rumour Has It, you should probably stop now, watch it and come back to the review when you’re done. If you have read it, then go on right ahead.
So let us catch you up if you haven’t been watching Rumour Has It. The show revolves around Obi Oby, all around crybaby and Nigeria’s ‘biggest’ gossip blogger. Every gossip blogger’s worst nightmare has been visited on her. After getting rich on putting everyone else’s scandal out in the open, Obi’s husband Wole goes behind her back and impregnates someone else, orchestrating a series of events that leaves Obi utterly disgraced.
The last five episodes have followed Obi’s attempts to salvage the crisis and wrest control of her life from the gossip grapevine. We use the word ‘salvage’ very loosely as Obi rarely does anything decisively and is usually either forced into action or has the event happen independently of her.
So there, you’re all caught up.
Ndani shows tend to have around 13 episodes so at this point we expect the plot to start to coalesce towards a proper end. Episode six starts with Wole at home in the afternoon (does anybody have a life in this show?) when suddenly there is loud banging at his front door. We wonder who in the world it could be?
Obi barges into the house and starts screaming at Wole, long overdue since we have not seen him since episode one. We find out during their tirade that he moved his new baby mama, the side chick (that nobody even bothered to name, because really, what else is she if not a plot point?) into the house they were planning to move into together. He is also using the cars that she bought (in Wole’s name) to drive around his baby mama. Some more screaming and scuffling ensues and Obi leaves, disgraced.
Home girl is an ode. How can you build a business that big and then proceed to rent a house/buy cars in somebody else’s name? Where was her supposed legal team when she was doing all of this?
Again, everything in this show suggests that Obi came into her success because she is lucky not naive.
After Obi leaves, guess who we find out has been cavorting with the enemy?
Obi’s PERSONAL ASSISTANT.
Obi’s personal assistant (who also doesn’t have a name, though she is a pivotal character) is best friends with Wole’s nameless baby mama. Baby mama has even visited Obi’s office before.
Okay, we’ll give them this one, we most certainly didn’t see this twist coming. Though we’re not even surprised the girl turned on her. Considering how badly Obi treats her staff and the kind of profession she is in, I’m surprised only the personal assistant has turned on her.
As is customary at this point after every confrontation, a weepy, mopey Obi shows up at David’s house, in the middle of the day. David has a chick over (because you know they’ve told us repeatedly he is a slut), the same chick from episode 5 at Sao Cafe. He bundles her out of the house after an awkward and frankly unnecessary scene so he can comfort his ‘true love’.
Let me just say, I really, really hope these people don’t come much later in the season and tell us David has been sleeping with all these women because he couldn’t have Obi his true love, because she has been busy playing love with Wole. I promise I will lose my shit.
Another day and Obi is with Jennifer, who six episodes in, and we know nothing about other than her name. Oh! and that she is supposed to be the Rumor Has It version of Sex and the city’s Samantha because she likes penis.
They are talking about Wole (again). Jennifer, the voice of reason points out that Wole needs Obi to initiate divorce proceedings, otherwise Wole’s hands are tied until their marriage hits two years. She also points out something Obi should already know; if you buy things or take out a lease in someone else’s name, you forfeit your legal right to it.
Obi decides to fight. Even if it’s just to disgrace Wole. About damn time too.
But of course, the good folks behind the show couldn’t get through one episode without making an epic blunder.
Next time we see Obi, she is in her office, running her blog with her assistant and Wole barges in, furious. He has just been served papers asking him to return the cars back to Obi and leave the flat before he is thrown out. They get into yet another screaming match where Wole claims he works as hard as Obi ‘building this blok‘. Obi reminds him she supported him too, on his failed businesses.
And this is why he is leaving her, because he thinks she thinks she is better than him; not her horrible tastes in weaves, or that she is a crybaby who always plays the victim, or the fact that despite her success she has not a single iota of business savvy or discernment in her body.
But while all of this was happening, all I could think about is the fact that Obi was still wearing the same clothes and the same weave from her scene with Jennifer.
Yup. Here’s receipts.
So in less than four hours, (since it was already daytime when she and Jennifer talked) Obi’s lawyers consulted with her, drafted several sheaves of legal papers, got them approved in a court of law, had ’em delivered to Wole, who read, got furious, dressed in his white kaftan and drove through Lagos to come and confront her.
In this same Lagos where there is constant traffic, where court cases go years because try finding a judge to sit on the case. It should have taken weeks at least to get papers served to anyone. But of course Obi gets it done in four hours because…
What is continuity or a coherent storyline in the face of some drama?
To think that all of this could have been avoided with a change of clothes.
After Wole storms off, Obi’s trusty P.A whips out her phone and calls her source (most likely Sylvia) and proceeds to offload the new gist, laying out the ground work for episode seven.
Chai.
When will we finally get an episode of Rumour Has It that doesn’t have any skoin-skoin? Is it even possible at this point? We will wait and see. Will my hopes keep getting dashed every week?
LIFE LESSON: Don’t buy a car or rent a house in somebody else’s name. What am I saying even, don’t buy chingum in somebody else’s name. It will come back and bite you in the ass.
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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