The Slap - S1E6 - Aisha
Previously on The Slap, ‘Connie’
Aisha is standing outside having a flashback to the time Sandy pulled up in the back of a cab, crying with her faced messed up and bloody. Obviously this is the incident she mentioned a few episodes back when Harry hit her. I can’t imagine ever going back home to something like that, but then again, I didn’t marry someone who hit me. I’m pretty sure I weigh more than my husband, so if he tried, it was nice knowing him. Present-day Aisha looks sad, almost guilty. But hey, people make their beds. They get stuck in situations they can’t or won’t get out of. That’s nobody else’s fault. She walks back inside, with a hopeless look on her face.
Cut to that stud of a wife-beater, wearing a wife-beater, who has clearly just finished a work-out. Sandy shows him an article online with his mugshot and a headline that reads, “Manhattan Car Dealer Charged with Child Battery.” Sandy tells him not to worry about it, that it’ll blow over and be gone in a few days. Doesn’t she know nothing on the internet ever dies or goes away? Except that really good Backstreet Boys fan fiction I used to read back in the late 90’s. That shit was like a novel and I can’t even remember the name. Anyway, cut to a gathering that includes Harry, Sandy, Hector, Aisha, Hector’s parents, and a few other people, one of which is a woman who says they are arranging it so Harry will be honored at a benefit. It’s an attempt to make him look like a good man. They want to present him as a man who “saves children” rather than batters them. Aisha’s giving him all kinds of side eye, cause she knows he’s an asshole and this is bullshit. He shouldn’t be honored, he should be strung up by his ankles and beaten with his own shirt.
Harry’s lawyer wants Aisha as a character witness who will testify that Harry is a magnificent man. She ain’t about it. Hector’s mom makes some snide comments in Greek that everyone, including Hector, ignores. Dude, have your wife’s back. What the fuck. This guy needs a long, drawn out divorce to teach him a thing or two.
For some reason, Richie is at Gary and Rosie’s house showing Gary some of his photography. Rosie comes walking in, “Hey, you got pictures from the barbecue?” He says he does, but tries to claim he doesn’t really have any pictures that show anything. Gary tells Richie to take Hugo down to the bodega to get him something with sugar in it. That’s nice. Send a wisp of a teenage boy to take your out of control child out in a public place. Once Richie is out of earshot, Gary says they’re not dragging Richie into it and he’s pissed Rosie even tried to.
“One troubled child is enough, even for me.”
He says Richie is a decent kid and they’re not going to sully everyone and everything that crosses their path with this case. Gary really seemed like the biggest douchebag in the very first episode, but since then, he’s been the fairly normal one and Rosie has been the one out of control. He admits they both have their heads so far up their asses he doesn’t even recognize her or himself anymore. The fight escalates into her saying she’s the only parent Hugo has and Gary saying she would stop being so obsessed with this whole thing if she just went back to being Rosie. Word, Gary. Word.
Connie brings her shady ass into Aisha’s office and hugs her like she didn’t just try to get her husband to fuck her. She tells Aisha she’s sorry she let her down, but her ass ain’t sorry about nothing. She wouldn’t be sorry if Hector had left his wife for her.
Aisha agrees to go to a conference in Boston for work, leaving the kids with Anouk. She says to them, “Don’t fight. I don’t want to come back and find one of you dead.” Jesus Christ, Aisha! Don’t say things like that! After Aisha leaves, Anouk reveals to Hector that Connie is testifying against Harry. She probably wouldn’t be considered as a good witness if they knew the truth.
Richie knows and is avoiding Connie and ignoring her texts. He feels he’s been sold out since she told Rosie about the pictures of the slap. He doesn’t want to be dragged into something that isn’t about him. He calls her selfish and asks her if she ever thinks about anybody else when she does what she does. No, is the answer. No, she does not. Someone who tries to break up a family because of their teenage whims is not a good person who thinks about how their actions affect others.
While out at the park, some guy is taking pictures of Hugo. Gary asks him what he’s doing taking pictures of his son, but the man just walks away.
Meanwhile, in Boston, Aisha runs into an old flame, who kind of looks like Gary, Robert Downey Jr, and Mark Ruffalo Photoshopped together. They meet up for dinner. She vents about the family she married into, and asks his advice on what she’s supposed to do because everyone wants her to lie about Harry. His advice is to lie to keep the peace. This guy has already admitted he’s an idiot who’s been divorced twice. Don’t take his advice. He makes bad choices! Me? I would just refuse to testify. I mean, she doesn’t have to, right? During this conversation, she takes hold of his hand. Then they go to a hotel and start fooling around. I wanted to fast forward, but I couldn’t because it was On Demand. He excuses himself for a minute and while he’s gone, she finds a wedding ring in his pocket. She dresses and leaves before he gets back. Marriage means nothing to anybody on this show. Is this life now? You can’t trust anybody?
Hector shows up to give her a ride home as she’s checking out. He said her missed her so much. Lucky for her, her little rendezvous didn’t go through.
She says, “This isn’t like you. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
We all know it’s the guilt. He apologizes for all his “mistakes”. He implies that something happened and then admitted it was Connie. She doesn’t understand why he’s even telling her about some petty dalliance with a teenager that is supposedly over. She chews him out and calls him a coward, which he is. On the ride home, she gets a text from the man she nearly slept with the night before. She admits to Hector what happened and also about a prior time she’d slept with him after telling Hector she was working late. Things get kind of intense and then they go back home.
When Aisha gets back to work, Sandy comes to the clinic. She tells her she admitted to the lawyer Harry had hit her and that Aisha knew about it, and was not fair to make her testify and lie on the stand. I wouldn’t be shocked if Sandy ended up in a barrel at the bottom of the ocean. Aisha asks her why she stays with him. She says the usual: there are so many wonderful things about their marriage and he would never hit her again. Her face tells she’s lying and so does Aisha’s.
Aisha goes back home, sees Hector and the kids playing, and turns and leaves, crying. Will she come back? We’ll see next week.
