Thelma Moves Out

"Thelma Moves Out" opens with Thelma's latest date with Paul (ROOTS' Hilly Hicks) undone by an overprotective JJ, so Thelma decides she's ready to move out. In no time at all she finds the perfect place, close to the campus and costing only $50 a month, sharing with three roommates. Karen Clay (Yahee) is her pretty classmate, immediately catching JJ's eye, Alvin (Bobby F. Ellerbee) is the biology student who leaves his test subjects in strange places, while Bear (William J. Quinn) lives up to his nickname, eating the quartet out of house and home. With the incredible bulk dancing up a storm, Alvin's tarantula on the loose, and Karen demonstrating her loose morals in front of Thelma's boyfriend Paul, it's not long before she reverses her decision to come home to the family that loves her. One of the fifth season's best remembered episodes, equally funny and poignant.

Due to a few misadventures, and JJ trying to boss her around, Thelma decides to move out. Between her three weird roommates and the love she has for the family she left, Thelma soon realizes the mistake she made. This episode has some genuine laughs, but the "love" is what really resonates. In a recent viewing, I was struck by something that hadn't occurred to me before. There is a scene where Thelma drops in on her family, and is furious with JJ for taking over her room. She realizes that she had given up her place in that apartment, and soon walks back out. Personally, I know how it feels to have to leave a place when you really don't want to leave. That unpleasant feeling is what I could see on Thelma's face, in this scene. She wasn't upset because JJ changed her room. She was upset because she loved JJ and she didn't know how to say it. At the end of the episode, however, she finds a way to tell JJ how she feels. I love when she tells him that she's coming home, and cries in his arms. Bern Nadette was great in this episode (as well as others).