'Greenleaf' Season 5 Episode 4 Review: Will the megachurch family really become homeless?
Spoilers for 'Greenleaf' Season 5 Episode 4
If Lady Mae (Mae McCready) can't save the day who will? As Kerissa Greenleaf's (Kim Hawthorne) conniving interest in toppling the titular megachurch family continues to soar higher and higher, sometimes the only respite viewers get from the Oprah Winfrey Network drama is Lady Mae kicking out her son Jacob Greenleaf (Lamman Rucker), for even bringing in the venomous serpent that is his soon-to-be-divorced wife Kerissa into the mix. And on the off chance where Lady Maedcompletely loses her cool, like this fourth episode of Season 5, she even manages to send fans into an ecstatic frenzy by asking Kerissa to simply shut the hell up. Of course, minus the swearing, because they are too religious for that. But it's still nice to know somebody can stand up to Kerissa even when Jacob fails too because he's concerned about his kids' custody.
The episode opens with children, quite frankly, pissing off their parents. On one hand, there's is the still recovering AJ (Jacob Gibson), who tells Grace Greenleaf (Merle Dandridge) he wants to go home with Noah Kendall (Benjamin Patterson), thus dragging the plot further than Starz's 'Power' did with the whole who shot Ghost plotline. On the other hand, Bishop James (Keith David) is outraged that his son Jacob would even think he was capable of murdering someone, let along confront him about actually doing it. Lady Mae too is outraged that because of a puny will Kerissa thinks she has a hold of their fabulous house and it is in these moments that the OWN show's prime matriarch actually lets out her not so accommodating side. To think that Lady Mae could get used to a less extravagant house is unimaginable - both for viewers and especially for her. So right after kicking James out, Lady Mae invests time into getting the Bishop to the Cavalry. They must not waste time!
But the Cavalry isn't her only line of defense when it comes to keeping their home situation intact. She also visits Kerissa, a personal visit, wherein she asks her to get the hell out of their house. For some reason Kerissa lets her guard down. Perhaps it is to manipulate Lady Mae into continuing to shelter her half of the family's property, or maybe it's because she knows Lady Mae is the one person who will be able to help Jacob see sense, but Kerissa comes clean about how she doesn't want a divorce. This is where things get interesting as it starts to look like the writers are paying close attention to what the fandom has to say after five long seasons.
After her heart to heart with Kerissa, we see LadyMae heading home and asking for a word alone with Jacob. And while we all expected she would have seen right through Kerissa's lies, instead she reminds Jacob that he, too, had cheated. Countless number of times. Therefore, Kerissa making one mistake shouldn't be punished so harshly. She asks Jacob to forgive Kerissa and he assures he will. Things again get layered with possibilities, this could be Lady Mae genuinely convinced of Kerissa's well intent or just another ruse to keep Kerissa from seizing their house right from under their noses. Lady Mae must have seen this was the only way to keep their house and she isn't willing to risk it.
But even after all of this, when the moment of truth finally comes, Jacob isn't able to apologize to Kerissa. Quite possibly because he has very strong feelings for Tasha Skanks (Asia'h Epperson). But that's not why things fall apart. Jacob's visit to Tara James (Jennifer Sears), whose father was murdered by his own, arrives at the family dinner table claiming she wants to talk about the house. It is Darryl James's will that has been causing all this ruckus, and now with Kerissa just a pawn in their game, what is left to be unraveled is whether Lady Mae will be able to save the day once again the way she tried with Kerissa. She doesn't quite have leverage over Tara, so who knows. Maybe this is the last family dinner the megachurch family enjoys in their mega home. Only later episodes will tell.
'Greenleaf' Season 5 airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm only on OWN.
