BET/Daniel McFadden(NEW YORK) — Being Mary Jane creator Mara Brock Akil is spilling secrets about the next few episodes of season two as the series returns to BET on Tuesday night.
“There’s a lot of family drama; the stuff that you would never want anybody to see but you know that those family arguments have happened, that ugly side that affects the entire family,” she tells ABC News Radio of what viewers can expect. “So, it’s an argument between two people that the parent has to come in and help sort out and it sort of has a ripple effect through the family. That is happening a lot this season.”
Those two people are Mary Jane, played by Gabrielle Union, and Niecy, portrayed by Raven Goodwin. The two continue to bump heads after Niecy moves in to Mary Jane’s house with her two kids. Last week, we saw Niecy burning an expensive pot, her kids ruining Mary Jane’s walls, and Niecy was even spying on Mary Jane.
“If you notice [in] the first season, no one was in Mary Jane’s house except Andre and…David, and her friends. But if you notice, none of the family really was hanging out in Mary Jane’s house. And so it was very deliberate to bring Niecy into Mary Jane’s house,” Akil explains. “Mary Jane thinks…she has so much to teach Niecy, but she and Niecy are a lot alike. Because now that Niecy’s in the house, and you saw last week she was snooping, and so the rubber is going to meet the road with those two. And you do not want to miss this episode.”
Akil’s husband, Salim, directs the episode, which is largely based in Mary Jane’s house — a home made completely of floor to ceiling windows. Akil explains why they decided Mary Jane should live in a glass house.
“You’ll notice in the show there’s a lot of mirrors. There’s a lot of glass. That was deliberate. And I was so happy. Salim and I had talked about that a lot. Because it’s supposed to be transparent. Let’s see through it,” she says. “It’s time to shed the lies that we hide from each other, or protect ourselves, may be another way to say it.”
In episode four, viewers will learn even more about Niecy. “We put this sort of character out there in a little bit of a stereotype of…the young black girl with two babies, you know. The show is always an onion that we peel back and discover things about the characters. And you’re gonna discover, ‘Oh wow, Niecy was on her way to college.’ Oh, she’s not what you think she is,” Akil explains. “And that’s intentional and it was intentional in making you wait that long; to make you have maybe some preconceived notions of her.”
Along with learning more about Mary Jane’s niece, viewers will also follow Mary Jane’s executive producer, Kara, portrayed by Lisa Vidal, as she tries to find love this season.
“One of the things that I wanted to explore with Kara’s character is how is it to date again when you’re divorced and you’re busy,” Akil tells ABC News Radio. “I mean, one of the reasons you’re divorced is because you were career-driven and a bunch of other issues. But your dating pool is going to be what? So she meets another divorced man and so he’s broken. So there’s a lot of broken people meeting and trying to find love.”
BET’s Being Mary Jane airs Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. Eastern time.
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