Mara Brock Akil Reveals Favorite "Girlfriends" Moment

[JamesG]

My favorite thing I’ve written for television is in the second season of "Girlfriends", Episode 7 titled, “Trick or Truth,” in which Toni and Joan make up in church as Donny McClurkin preaches and performs his song, “We Fall Down.” I love it for many reasons.

It was the first time I fully exercised my voice and showed the humanity of black women. It proved that in a comedy we can pause for a real moment and the audience will not just accept it but enjoy the emotion. It was also the first time I got to fully execute and express the tone in which I always wanted the show to be.



In my mind "Girlfriends" was supposed to be a single-camera comedy, but I had a multicamera budget as well as the network’s expectation that those characters belonged without a fourth wall.

I knew they were far bigger than that, they deserved a real location for their real life obstacles and that the storytelling deserved the visual depth that the location, hundreds of extras, and great performances allowed.



From that moment on, "Girlfriends" vacillated between laughter and tears, sometimes per episode, and like the moment when Joan and Toni made up, we laughed and cried in the same scene.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarettwiesel...uff#.mfgXNnGBY