Black Monday: Why Did Girlfriends Return?

I love me some Girlfriends.


But when I speculated that the last season may have been the last [click here], I wish I had been right.

After all, now in it's eighth seasons, what is left to surprise or entertain us about the daily lives of Joan (Tracey Ellis Ross), Lynn (Persia White) and Maya (Golden Brooks)?

How many times will Joan find and lose love? Last week for the season premiere we learn Joan's fiance of a whole minute, Aaron (Richard T. Jones) is being deployed to Iraq. I read somewhere over the summer that he would be leaving the show but did this have to be the exit strategy? I think I would have rathered them replace this character with someone else and maybe waited further into the season to break them up. But anyhoo, Joan struggles with losing her husband-to-be but more importanly struggles with the idea that should could lose him forever.

Is Lynn glam, glam-trash, bohemian chic, or what? I don't think anyone else on this show has had more makeovers than Lynn. I remember just recently seeing an old episode of Girlfriends in syndication (on BET) and thinking how much Lynn has been cleaned up over the years. Well...not so fast. The new season kicked off last week as Lynne rocked with her band sporting long braids, revealing her tattoos and giving us the old grunge Lynn of yester-year. And what makes matters worse, she is still chasing her pipe dreams of finding success in the music industry. This is starting to get real boring. Yes, I know there are millions of die hard musicians out there that spend their whole lives chasing the dream but that doesn't necessarily make for good TV. Give the woman a record deal, a manager, and a hit on the Billboard charts already. Damn!

Can Maya become anymore of a plain-Jane? Once my favorites of the show(and still is), Maya is now married with a teenage son, baby on the way and the ideal house. Last night's episode had her accusing her son, Jabari (Tanner Scott Richards), of owning a stash of weed she discovers in his room, in an old drawer once belonging to Darnell (Khalil Kain). After not beleiving him and then grounding him, turns out the stash was actually Darnell's who turned to blunts when he was once depressed over a break up with Maya a few years back. Was I the only one who didn't guess that would be the outcome? To be honest, it should have been Jabari's weed. It's no mystery today how many black teenagers frequently use the drug. So why not use this opportunity to bring a real life situation into the show?

Food for thought. Wouldn't Maya and family make a great spin-off show to Girlfriends? Are you listening reading Mara Brock Akil? I'm just giving this one to you.

All the other characters of the show so far might as well be extras. Which leads me to beleive they should have went with their original plans of making the last season of Girlfriends, the last.