Session 475: On the Couch with the Characters of The Five Star Weekend

Today, Dr. Joy is breaking down the emotional journeys of each of the characters of the series, The Five Star Weekend. We’ll dive into their complicated friendship dynamics, how they navigate grief, and the patterns that drive their decisions throughout the series. Think of this as a therapy session for the characters, exploring the wounds, relationships, and reckonings at the heart of the show. Spoiler warning: we'll be discussing major plot points from start to finish. About the Podcast The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Resources & Announcements Want to reflect on this conversation in community? Join us inside our Patreon https://community.therapyforblackgirls.com/ community where we’re unpacking this episode together. You can now catch episodes of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@therapyforblackgirls. Be sure to subscribe to get new episodes every week. Did you know you can leave us a voice note with your questions for the podcast? If you have a question you'd like some feedback on, topics you'd like to hear covered, or want to suggest movies or books for us to review, drop us a message at memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls https://memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls and let us know what’s on your mind. We just might share it on the podcast. Grab your copy of Sisterhood Heals. https://www.sisterhoodheals.com/ Connect with Dr. Joy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hellodrjoy. Stay Connected​https://click.convertkit-mail.com/27uv20p9mpioh8edr34s8ug63w344hg/58hvh8ug08p6wzc6/dGhlcmFweWZvcmJsYWNrZ2lybHMuY29tb3JibGFja2dpcmxzLmNvbS9wYXRyZW9u Is there a topic you'd like covered on the podcast? Submit it at therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out the directory at https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/directory. Grab your copy of our guided affirmation and other TBG Merch at therapyforblackgirls.com/shop https://therapyforblackgirls.com/shop. The hashtag for the podcast is #TBGinSession. Make sure to follow us on social media: Instagram: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.instagram.com/therapyforblackgirls Facebook: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.facebook.com/therapyforblackgirls Our Production Team Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Gabrielle Collins Director of Podcast & Digital Content: Ellice Ellis Producer: Ndeye Thioubou Production Assistant: Bria Mosley See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at therapyforblackgirls.com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Hey y'all. Thanks so much for joining me for session 475 of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. I'm so glad that you're spending some more time with me today because today I'm welcoming the characters from The Five Star Weekend to the couch. We'll get right into this conversation after a quick word from our sponsors.

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  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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• 2:36Speaker 00

  So after hearing about it from the girls on threads, I decided to binge The Five Star Weekend. It's a show that pulls you in with complicated friendships and plenty of twists, but underneath all of that is asking much bigger questions. How well do we ever truly know the people closest to us? What happens when grief collides with long-held secrets? And what does it take to finally reckon with the version of yourself you spent years protecting? Today, we're unpacking the emotional journeys of each of the women at the center of the series. We'll break down the wounds and patterns they're carrying into the weekend, how each character navigates friendship, grief, forgiveness, and self-discovery, and how the events of the weekend transformed them and their relationships. So if you've finished the series or don't mind a few spoilers, get comfortable because

• 3:21Speaker 00

  we're diving into The Five Star Weekend for a special episode of On the Couch. Let's get into it.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  So a little bit of a breakdown of what we actually see happening in The Five Star Weekend. So we have food blogger Hollis, who's played by Jennifer Garner, and she's trying to combat the loss of her husband Matthew by recreating a Five Star Weekend getaway at her house on Nantucket with four friends from different stages of her life. So there is her childhood friend Tatum, her college friend Drew Ann, who's played by the hilarious Regina Hall, her motherhood friend Brooke, as well as a woman Gigi, who she recently met online. As the five friends spend the weekend together, they mature in ways they could never imagine as boundaries are pushed and secrets are exposed. So if

• 4:13Speaker 00

  you have watched the series, then I'm sure that you have lots of thoughts, as I do, about all of the characters, which is why I thought it would make a great On the Couch episode. So let's just start with Hollis. So Hollis is our main character. She is a food blogger. As women, as people, we all have our own coping strategies and the ways that we try to manage difficult things in our lives. And so Hollis's, it feels like, main coping strategy is perfectionism and presentation as a way to avoid things, right? So you know, she is a food blogger and a lot of her life revolves around making beautiful

• 4:53Speaker 00

  food to photograph and share with her audience. And so there's a lot of focus on things looking beautiful, right? But this does not just stop in her world as it relates to her food and her work. There is also a very heavy focus on what her presentation of grief looks like. It looks like she is much more focused on how she is perceived to the world as a grieving widow and not really wanting people to think that her world is falling apart than she is actually feeling the feelings of grief. And this actually leads to some tension with her daughter Caroline, who is a college student, because Caroline doesn't feel like mom is actually grieving the loss of Hollis's husband. And so there is some

• 5:38Speaker 00

  tension there because Caroline, of course, feels awful that her dad has passed away, but doesn't actually feel like mom is so sad. And so there's some tension there. It feels like Caroline is trying to push mom away because she doesn't feel like she really gets what the grief has done to her life. Now, of course, Hollis is grieving in her own way, which I think is an important thing to point out, right? That grief can look different for lots of different people. So of course Hollis is grieving, but it doesn't look like what Caroline thinks it should look like, which is where the tension comes from. So Hollis plans this weekend on Nantucket for four of her friends. So like we said, she has a childhood friend Tatum, who grew up on Nantucket with Hollis, and they consider

• 6:23Speaker 00

  themselves sisters. So she actually moved into Tatum's home after her mom passed away. So they have grown up very, very close, but Tatum still lives on Nantucket. And so Hollis is now in New York. Her work and her, you know, family have taken her in lots of different places, and Tatum still is in her hometown. And I think that that is an interesting dynamic, right? When we see friendships where there is this, this history, but somebody has moved away and created a very different life, whereas the other person is still kind of in the hometown and maybe has not been exposed to as much as the other friend. And so we definitely see some tension there, though it isn't always spoken. You can definitely feel it through the characters. There is this tension there about the differences and

• 7:08Speaker 00

  the different routes that their lives has taken them. And this is most pronounced with the introduction of Drew Ann, which is Regina Hall's character. So Drew Ann is the college friend. She is a high-powered agent. She is managing a tennis store who we see there is some, she's canceled by the internet because she makes a comment around this tennis store wanting to take a break. And she says like, oh, this is not a struggle for her. She doesn't have mental health concerns and she faces some backlash there. But Drew Ann and Tatum clearly have some tension. It feels like more from Tatum's side because in a lot of ways, it feels like she has been replaced by Drew Ann. I think that that is what Tatum

• 7:52Speaker 00

  is feeling. And it also feels like there is some tension related to the wedding. I guess Drew Ann made a comment about some shoes that Tatum was wearing, like, oh, are you planning to wear those? And Tatum kind of took that as if she was not good enough, right? Now, I'm guessing that there were already some feelings there for Tatum around, like I said, the being replaced by this new friend. Is there still space for me in this, in Hollis's life? But there is definitely some underlying tension there, and you see periods of it boiling over in the relationship between Tatum and Drew Ann. Now, Tatum, when we talk about going back to like, what are people's primary coping mechanisms? What

• 8:34Speaker 00

  we see from Tatum is that she is very avoidant, right? So what we learn throughout the show with her is that she's having a health scare, and mom died of breast cancer, and she has gone in for her mammogram and they found a lump. And so what a lot of what we see throughout the show is her waiting on the results of this. But she does not necessarily disclose this very early on. She is kind of sitting on the results and not really wanting to kind of introduce this topic to Hollis and the other women. Right now Hollis is, of course, the person she has the closer relationship with. But she is really not wanting to face this, right? And really wanting to kind of have this be something that she's dealing

• 9:16Speaker 00

  with herself and with her husband, until eventually we do see that she has to tell Hollis about what's going on. When we think about Drew Ann's primary coping strategy, it is throwing herself into work, right? Which I think is a pattern many of us can recognize probably in ourselves, that if I just throw all of my energy into working and doing what I need to do and really focusing on my career, then I don't have to deal with all these other things in my life. Now, we also see Drew Ann has a history of being a college athlete. She played soccer, and it sounds like her career was ended after an injury. And so we also see throughout the show that she has some lingering leg issues related to, I'm guessing, her career as a soccer player, but that she also wants

• 10:00Speaker 00

  to downplay this. And I think that that is something that is also important for us to pay attention to for our own lives, right? Like how often we will ignore signs from our bodies or downplay things until it gets too severe when we really cannot ignore it anymore. So that's Drew Ann's primary coping strategy is that she is throwing herself into work and really ignoring some red flags that her body is giving her. And then Brooke is the mom friend, right? So it seems like Brooke and Hollis have developed a relationship through the relationship that their kids have had or just going to similar schools. And so Brooke is the not newest friend, but she is a newer friend to this circle.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  And it feels like there is a more tenuous relationship between Hollis and Brooke. Now Brooke, I think, has come into more of the limelight because she was available the night that Matthew died, like she was the one who was at the hospital with Hollis. And so it feels like there has been more significance and more maybe gravity added to their relationship as by virtue of her being there throughout Matthew passing and being there for the funeral and really being there to kind of hold Hollis up. But it doesn't feel like there is the same history there. And so I think throughout the, the show, what we see is that Brooke is trying to figure out where does she actually fit, given that she doesn't have the same history that Duran

• 11:24Speaker 00

  and Tatum have with Hollis. When we think about the primary coping strategy for Brooke, it feels like shopping is a big one for her, right? So we kind of are introduced to Brooke when she is taking in all of these packages from her porch that she's just ordered. And then once she finds out that she's invited to this weekend on Nantucket, her immediate response is, oh, I'm going to need all new outfits. Right? So it definitely feels like Brooke is kind of coping with the things in her life through shopping. What we find out throughout the show also is that Brooke is struggling in her marriage. So her husband has been accused of being inappropriate, I think with an intern in the office.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  And so it feels like she is kind of questioning what's actually happening in her marriage, but also wanting to present to the world that things are okay. What we also find out, though, is that Brooke is questioning her sexuality, right? And so there are lots of instances throughout the show where we see her kind of introduce this conversation and kind of test it out with other people to see their reaction. And by the end, we find out that she has made the decision to leave her marriage and explore a relationship with a woman, right? Like she kind of leans fully into that. But I thought that that was a really interesting nuance that added to the character, which was really good to see.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  If you think about like what it might look like, you know, I think we often think about kind of exploring sexuality as something that happens early on in life. But the truth is that you can explore your sexuality at any point in your life. And so I thought it was really cool that we saw a woman in middle age think about like, oh, is this something that I'm interested in and what might it be like to pursue that? So very interesting character development there with Brooke. Now, if you follow me on social media, and you absolutely should, because I talked a little bit about this on Instagram, I'm at Hello Dr. Joy. But one of the main questions that I had leaving this series was why in the world would Gigi actually show up to this weekend at Hollis's house?

• 13:27Speaker 00

  So Gigi is the newest quote unquote friend in this circle. But Gigi is someone who Hollis has met through the internet. So she is a follower of her page and they have connected online after Matthew passed. Now, what we find out, of course, very early on is that Gigi actually was having an affair with Matthew before he passed and connected with Hollis after he passed for some reasons that feel unknown. I think when I'm thinking about like, what in the world would lead Gigi to actually showing up to this woman's house after she knows she has had the affair? And Hollis does not know this. I'm led to, to think about a couple of different things, right?

• 14:11Speaker 00

  So one, I think she wanted to suss out, like, who was this person that Matthew had built a life with, right? So a comparison with, okay, the wife versus the mistress and like, who is this person that he chose? Now, what we do find out later in the show is that though they had the affair and Matthew was actually leaving the day of his accident, he died in a car accident. He was leaving to go to the airport with and meet Gigi, I think in Paris. But he has like second thoughts as he's having a conversation leaving the house with Hollis and I think is reconsidering actually working on his marriage again.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  And so what we find out is that on the way, while like briefly, I guess, before the accident happens, he actually called Gigi to let her know that he was planning to go back to his wife and that he was ending things with her. And so I also think that a part of what Gigi was wanting to do was to kind of see, okay, who is this person that he chose over me? But I also think that there was a deep longing for closeness to Hollis that Gigi, it feels like maybe had, right? So it feels like there is not a lot of support necessarily in Gigi's life. We do see that she has a friendship with someone, so Gigi is a pilot.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  We see that she has a friendship with someone who is a flight attendant for her same airline. But we don't know very much else about her life, right? So it does feel like there is a loneliness and it does feel like in another world, in some other very different circumstance, she and Hollis actually could have had a relationship, right? Like, it feels like she could have been someone who became Hollis's newest friend in this circle, but under these circumstances is incredibly suspect. So another part of what I feel like Gigi was attempting to do in going to this weekend, I actually think that eventually Gigi did feel for Hollis, right?

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Like she wanted to be there to try to like comfort her in her grief. But of course, this is very complicated because you have had an affair with this woman's husband. So I think that in some ways she wanted to be there to support, but it was also very complicated. I also think that this was a way of Gigi getting some closure on this situation because this is an affair that likely not a lot of people knew about. And so what does that look like to have this grief that you really can't be public about because you were involved in a relationship with somebody who like societally would not be acceptable, right?

• 17:00Speaker 00

  And so I think that this was a way of her processing her own grief through supporting Hollis. But I also think that eventually it got to a place where she actually wanted to try to be there for Hollis and did actually care for her as a friend, even though the, the situation through which she was introduced to Hollis was definitely not on the up and up. But I still think it was very curious that she made the decision to go to the weekend in the first place. That is a little bit of a breakdown of the characters that we meet here. Now I want to move into talking about maybe more of the like deeper themes that I kind of saw emerge from watching the five star weekend. And of course, one of the biggest is grief, right?

• 17:45Speaker 00

  So we of course have the immediate grief of Hollis losing her husband, Matthew, in the car accident. So what does the grief mean for her? What does the grief mean for Caroline, her daughter? And so of course, they are trying to figure out where this story starts is six months after the car accident, right? So they've had six months of living without dad and husband. I think when we think about like the timeline for grief, and we know there is no timeline, but six months post losing your husband feels very, very still sudden, right? Like, I don't think that anybody would necessarily expect that she would be back up in, in front of her online community. One of the earliest scenes that we see with her that she's doing like a morning show,

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  she's throwing herself back into work kind of after her husband's loss. And it feels like something else that we see as a way for her to manage her grief is that she is really an expert at compartmentalizing, right? Like, okay, I can go do this thing and then I can tend to the grief afterwards. We also hear her talk about this folder that she has created on her computer that is almost like a checklist or a to do list of how to manage grief, right? Now, of course, there are lots of different resources and things that can be helpful to manage the more difficult parts of a grief experience. But the truth is that a lot of it is just sitting with the yucky, difficult, really

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  sad, sad experiences of losing somebody who has been important to you. The really difficult experiences of sitting with yourself after you've lost someone. And so all of the checklist that we think we might be able to complete, all of the breathing exercises and all of the things, right? Like those things can be helpful, but there is no recipe, no kind of nice bow that we can tie on the experience of grief. And I think that that is what we see a lot of with Hollis throughout this experience. You know, so she plans this weekend as a way of her really, it feels like distracting herself from the grief and really, you know, maybe wanting some support. But it isn't as if, you know, and of course she has like planned out this perfect itinerary

• 19:54Speaker 00

  of things for them to do. And it doesn't necessarily include like any like downtime for her to just talk with her friends about how she's feeling, which Tatum calls to her attention, right? Like, hey, you brought us all here. You brought the most important people in your life together and it feels like you don't actually want to talk about this, right? And I think it brings up an interesting question because, you know, Tatum kind of being her longest standing friend and, and already supporting her through an experience of grief, right? Because she moved in with her after her mom passed. I think she kind of knows maybe a little bit more than the rest of the group around what kind of support Hollis actually needs, but does she actually want to lean into it?

• 20:37Speaker 00

  And I think for Hollis, the answer is no, she doesn't. But Tatum, I think in the rest of the group, to certain extent, also recognized, hey, like you haven't really talked about this. And I think it was also really interesting that at one point we hear Hollis talk about the fact that she felt more comfortable talking to Gigi, who is the newest friend, than maybe she did talking to her friends who had been there for longer parts of her life, right? And I don't think that that's necessarily uncommon, you know, especially when you are dealing with something so difficult. Maybe it feels easier to talk to people who don't have all of the history, who don't know maybe the complicated stories of what has happened. And sometimes it just feels a little easier to talk to somebody who's a stranger.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  But I do think that Duran and Tatum, and maybe to even some point Brooke, felt something related to the fact that she found it easier to talk to Gigi. More from our conversation after the break.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app,

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  Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. What still makes you just sit down at the piano?

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  If you sat down at 9:00 AM and then at noon, you had a full song that you recorded and put in your voice recorder or you recorded at your studio. You just created something brand new that didn't exist when you woke up. What a beautiful feeling it is. I'm always excited to write something new. I've been writing for Broadway, which has been a new challenge with new collaborators and these amazing performers who are triple threats, who can sing and dance and act and do all these amazing things. And I want to keep feeling that. And so that means not resting on my laurels, going out there and continuing to create something new.

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  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  So, you know, we see Hollis talk about like, okay, you want me to talk about it? Fine, I can talk about it. But she still isn't really wanting to go there. Now, we do eventually see after she finds out about the affair and all of those things, we see her go a little further. But I think that she is a great example of how we can have all of these feelings, especially related to grief, that we just refuse to deal with and kind of keep pushing and pushing until they pop up in lots of different ways, right? Like, so we see her basically have this meltdown in the kitchen where she's breaking things and throwing things on the floor. And I think that sometimes, though, that may be an extreme example, that is an example of what can happen when we try to bottle grief up and try to avoid dealing with it in lots of different ways

• 24:27Speaker 00

  until it finally demands to have a voice and a presence in our lives. And so that's one of the ways that it can look. So, of course, like I said, we do have the grief related to the loss of Matthew. But I think that there is grief that we see in lots of different ways in throughout this, the show. And one of the ways that I think grief presents is in the way that your relationships transition throughout your life, right? So, you know, I think that there is kind of the playful banter with Tatum and Drew Ann around who is Hollis's best friend. But I think that there is grief related to your best friend moving on, going to college in a different place and developing relationships with other people that you aren't necessarily a part of.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  And so there is grief related to those transitions and those changes that happen in our lives related to our friendship. I don't think that we always call it that. And I think we've talked about this here on the podcast before. I definitely talked about it in Sisters of the Hills, where I talk about, you know, our relationships change. And I think a lot of our reactions to those changes are often grief reactions, but we don't actually recognize it in that because we don't actually recognize it as that. Because we typically only think about grief as related to the loss or the death of someone. But grief reactions can actually be responses that we have to the loss of anything that felt important to us. And so when a friendship changes, even if we're happy, right?

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  Like typically, you're happy if your friend gets a big promotion or goes off and gets married or has a baby. Like, you're typically happy for them. But at the same time, you are holding space for the ways that your relationship now has to change because of what else is happening, right? So somebody who you were talking to all day, all the time, whenever there was a free moment, maybe they don't have that same kind of time now and things have to change, right? And so as much as you understand and can be happy for the changes that are happening, it also does introduce this different way of being with one another that can cause some grief. And so I think when we think about grief that we see in the show, it's not just related to Matthew.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  I think it is also related to the changes that we see in our friendships. But I also think that each of the characters had their own personal stories with grief, right? So Tatum and her health challenges. And I think thinking about, what does that mean for my life? Is this going to be a terminal illness? She has a husband and a daughter and a grandchild. And so thinking about like anticipatory grief, right? Like, if this is something that's going to be terminal, what does this mean for me? But also, I think the grief related to maybe what she imagined her life to be. Like, did she imagine that she would always be in Nantucket? Or did she have visions for her life doing something else? I think there's grief there. I think for Drew Ann, there is grief related to,

• 27:22Speaker 00

  we see her throughout the show, trying to figure out like, okay, where does my career go next, right? So after she is canceled by the internet for her comments about mental health, I think it really introduces her to the idea of, if I can be canceled so easily and if my boss is willing to perhaps terminate me for something after I have done so much for the company and maybe made so much money and like put so much of my personal life on the backlog for this job, then is this something that I'm really that invested in, right? And I think sometimes those kinds of things have to happen before we realize like, oh, I may need to reevaluate my relationship to this. And so I think there's grief for Drew Ann as it relates to the next phase of her career

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  and kind of what has she given up to be at this place in her career? For Brooke, I think there is the loss of the relationship with her husband, right? And he has definitely made some choices that have led to her decision to leave. But I also think, you know, given that she is somebody who it feels like is really focused on presentation and kind of what my family looks like to the world, that is also, of course, a grief, right? Like, even if you know you are leaving for under good circumstances and it is a good choice for you and your kids, there is also grief related to having to leave the life that you built and the life that you kind of envisioned for yourself. But also as she explores her sexuality, right? Like, even while it may be a good thing and something that she's really excited about,

• 28:51Speaker 00

  I'm sure that there is also some trepidation and hesitancy about what does this mean for my life, right? Like, is this something that I'm going to really dive all the way into? How do I talk about this to my kids? Like, there's still a lot that you are negotiating and leaving behind, even as you maybe walk into something that feels exciting to you. There is still grief there. And then for Gigi, we've already talked about this a little bit, but there is the grief related to losing Matthew and not being able to publicly claim that grief because of who she was in his life, right? And not being able to necessarily have support around that. But I also think there's the grief now related to losing the relationship with Hollis, right?

• 29:34Speaker 00

  So, of course, after we find out about the affair, after she shares that, then Hollis, of course, does not want to have a relationship with her. And so even though she came into Hollis's life under circumspect circumstance, I do feel like she actually did begin to develop friendship feelings for her. And so now to lose that on top of the loss of Matthew, who she, you know, it sounds like was kind of developing a vision of a future with, now there is grief related to this person that you had spent so much time talking to and kind of supporting and maybe supporting you, that you now have to figure out like, okay, how do I get those needs met? So there's grief there for her as well.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  One of the other themes that I think is very visible, very kind of present in what we see happening in the five star weekend, and we talked a little bit about this, kind of as I talked about the individual journeys, but one of the other things that I think we see is a real reckoning with self through these characters, right? So a transition between kind of who they were before this weekend and who they were afterwards. And I think that that's also really poignant, right? To think about like, what can happen in the course of a weekend? When you put a group of women together, again, a throwback to sisterhood heels, I also thought that there was a very strong kind of sisterhood lens across this whole weekend, right? Across the whole show.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  But I also think that it really shows the power of what can happen when you are locked in together for a weekend and the kinds of conversations that can happen, especially when people, not to use the real world language, but start getting really real with one another, right? And I think that that is often what happens when we take trips like this or we go to a retreat, is that we have left the trappings of our daily lives. You're not in the same routine. You're having conversations maybe that you aren't typically having. And so it really does sometimes cause you to get very familiar with yourself, right? And to really confront some parts of yourself that maybe are only visible to you when it is reflected to other people. And I think that that is a lot of what was happening throughout the weekend across the show.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  What we saw was people really having to reckon with new ideas of themselves, right? So for Hollis, I think she is reckoning with, of course, life post her husband, but also this very persistent focus on presentation, like I said, right? And really being more concerned with the looks of something as opposed to the reality of a situation. I think that that was the big reckoning for her. And also the lengths that she would go to, to kind of make things just right, even to the extent of abandoning herself, right? Like, I think a lot of what we saw in flashbacks, but also throughout the weekend, was her wanting to make sure that other people were more comfortable than she was, right?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  And how often that that was a pattern throughout her life. And so it feels like that is what she is really kind of reckoning with on the other side of this weekend. For Drewan, I think it was, again, kind of reckoning with who she has been as a career woman and the effort and energy she has really put into her career and what does that look like now on the other side of this canceling? What it lends to is that it feels like she's going to start her own thing and maybe aim to do things differently and to have a different, a more gentle touch, maybe with the people that she represents. But it definitely feels like she is reckoning with this idea of having put so much energy into something else and then what has been the payoff? For Tatum, I think she is reckoning with her health, right?

• 33:17Speaker 00

  And what does this mean? You know, kind of even at the end, and we see that she isn't still being completely forthcoming with Hollis about her health. She's gotten information from the doctor that she doesn't share with Hollis. And so I think it will be reckoning with her around what does support actually look like, right? Like, it feels like she is very much the person who shows up for other people, but has real trouble asking for help and allowing people to show up for her in those same ways. And so what does it mean as somebody who maybe will have to undergo treatments and maybe not be able to take care of herself in the same ways? What will it look like for her to maybe be in a position where she is maybe needing to ask for more help?

• 34:00Speaker 00

  More from our conversation after the break. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities?

• 34:43Speaker 00

  How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by breakout singer-songwriter Alex Warren.

• 35:17Speaker 05

  I had this dream of being a musician, and everyone I had known was kind of like, you're not good at music, you know, you should probably have other things a backup plan, whatever. Felt like I didn't have anyone close to me. And my wife had flown out to visit, and she found out I was sleeping in a car she didn't know. And she was like, let's do it. And she slept in a car with me. And for the first time in my life, I realized that in a life full of what I thought was things happening to me, something was finally happening for me.

• 35:44Speaker 06

  Dude, that's like the most romantic shit I've ever heard.

• 35:47Speaker 05

  The coolest thing ever.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  And then for Brooke, the reckoning will be on the other side of this weekend. Like, what does it look like now to have left my marriage and to be exploring my sexuality, maybe in a relationship with a woman, whether it's the woman that she met on Nantucket or someone else? It definitely feels like she is reckoning with this past version of her life versus this new one now that she's very excited to explore. And then for Gigi, I think the reckoning with herself will come on the other side of this weekend of what did I do, right? Like, what does it mean that I had an affair? What does it mean that I then got close to his widow? What does it mean that I then showed up there, right? Like, how do you make sense of all of that?

• 36:46Speaker 00

  And what does that mean now for the pieces of your life that you now have to put back together, right? Because I do think, like I alluded to earlier, it does feel like this getting close to Hollis really spoke to the lack of connections maybe that she had in other places of her life. And now that she doesn't have this relationship with Hollis, like, what is that going to look like, right? Like, how does she manage that grief for herself? So the reckoning with self, I think, was also another major theme that I saw throughout the five star weekend. I also thought it was just a really cool, like I mentioned, you know, like sisterhood is the foundation of the entire story. But I do think it introduced these interesting conversations around what does it mean to

• 37:30Speaker 00

  bring together different people from different parts of your life, right? And I think about, you know, so often we have situations where we kind of only do things with our work friends, or we only do things with our childhood friends, or we only do things with our college friends. And I think that there's a place for that. But I think what we saw here is what it might look like to have all of those people together, right? And to even think about for yourself, like, who are you to all of these different people? Because it's likely that they're different versions, or at least different parts of yourself, that maybe feel more present in the relationships with all of these different people. And so I, as much as it, of course, I think makes for some drama, as we saw between Drewan and Tatum, though that doesn't always have to be the case, I do think it lends to some

• 38:12Speaker 00

  interesting questions around who are we in our groups of friends? And what might it look like to bring together different people from different parts of our lives, maybe under different circumstances? But what would that look like, right? Like, is this something that you maybe are even thinking of doing for yourself or for your friend circle, right? Like, what would it mean to go to a house on Nantucket or a house wherever, kind of have a weekend just designed to really take care of yourself, but also maybe to deepen the relationships with other people? I think it is also an interesting question, kind of as a psychologist watching this and as somebody who is interested in doing retreats for groups of friends, right? If Hollis had called me and said, hey, I'm thinking about doing this retreat for a group

• 38:56Speaker 00

  of my friends, I want you to come in and do like a workshop or something, thinking about like how I maybe would have designed that weekend. Now, of course, knowing what we know, knowing what we know about Hollis and like these other people, I definitely think that I would have encouraged more downtime for conversations as opposed to the by the minute planning of all of the activities, because I think that that was, again, Hollis's attempt to avoid dealing with some really difficult feelings. So I definitely would have encouraged her to have more time to actually spend just talking with one another and actually checking in with one another, right? But I think that they eventually got to that, where we see the scene where they're in the bathroom passing around a bottle of shampoo as a talking stick.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  That is what I would have wanted to see earlier in the retreat experience. Now, granted, it may have been better where it failed, right? Because we now see that defenses are down, this is after, the meltdown in the kitchen has happened, and so maybe people are more comfortable talking at that point. But I think that there could have, if I were designing this weekend, I would have had multiple touchpoints for open conversation as opposed to, okay, everything is planned to the minute and there is no real time for downtime. So thinking about what that might look like for me to plan a weekend for somebody like Hollis and her friends or another group of friends. I think if I had to wrap up with thinking about like a piece of advice I would offer to

• 40:22Speaker 00

  the friend group, I would encourage them to maybe make this annual kind of experience, or at least a more regular experience. Because I think one of the things that we saw in the show is that Drew Ann and Hollis did have a weekend where they had spent some time together years ago, and then life got busy, right? Like Hollis's blog took off, Drew Ann climbed the career ladder and her job. And so then it became very difficult for them to schedule that. And so I think that is an experience that many of us have, right? Like, we have these really good intentions of having girls trips every year, and then things happen, and we can't stick to the schedule. But I think if there were one piece of advice I would give to the group is to put this back on the calendar and make it a priority and

• 41:07Speaker 00

  protect it, just like you protect all the other things in your calendar. Because what we see is that then it becomes more difficult to ask for help, or it, there's been so much time that's passed that you didn't realize this thing happened with this person, right? And if there are more regular touchpoints, then you don't necessarily see those lapses. And I think that is really important for women's mental health, right? Like, as we saw through this show, we do realize like how much strength comes from us being able to rely on one another, to laugh with one another, to really show support for one another. And I think making sure that we are building that into our schedules makes it so that it

• 41:49Speaker 00

  is not always like a crisis intervention kind of thing, but it is more just a regular maintenance kind of opportunity for us. And so that is the advice that I would give to Hollis and this group of friends if they were actually real people, is to make a more concerted effort to have regular touchpoints with one another like this, right? So maybe every July, you go to Nantucket and spend a weekend together. Or maybe it rotates, or even if it can't be every year, like maybe it is every two years, and then on the off years, we make a more concerted effort to do something virtually. But to not let there be so much time that passes before you're able to get your group together, because

• 42:30Speaker 00

  we saw the incredible amount of support and transformation that can happen when you have the designated time and space to really just focus on being with one another. So that's the advice that I would give to this group. If I had to give this show a different name besides Five Star Weekend, knowing now what I know about it, I think The Secrets of the Island could be a good one, right? Because we saw that they all came in with varying levels of secrets that they brought to Nantucket. And so I think The Secrets of the Island could be a good one. Maybe feels a little more scandalous than actually what happened, but it feels like the best one I could come up with right now. If you have already watched Five Star Weekend, I would love to hear your

• 43:15Speaker 00

  kind of thoughts around people's different coping strategies that you saw, maybe what it even introduced into your own personal reflections of friendships, right? Like, are you thinking about your friendships differently based on what we saw in Five Star Weekend? Are you maybe planning a retreat for you and your girls based on what you saw, or maybe just the idea kind of sparked because of the show? I would love to hear your thoughts and for you to weigh in on the Five Star Weekend. Like I say, it is one of my favorite watches of the recent history. So if you have not already tuned in, you can find it on Peacock. All the episodes are available. I think they're typically around 30, 35 minutes, so it's not a long watch. I think I finished it in like two days, maybe even one. I can't quite remember. But it definitely is something that is worthy

• 44:00Speaker 00

  to add to your watch list. So definitely check it out. Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your questions or suggestions for the podcast? If you have topics that you'd like us to discuss, or movies or shows that you'd like us to review, drop us a message at memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls and let us know what's on your mind. We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory at therapyforblackgirls.com/directory. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at @therapyforblackgirls. You can join us in our Patreon community at community.therapyforblackgirls.com for exclusive updates, behind-the-scenes content, and much more. This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Inde Chubu, and Bria Mosley. Editing was

• 44:44Speaker 00

  done by Denison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:28Speaker 07

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• 47:21Speaker 01

  At Food Lion, low prices and MVP savings make it easier to shop for what you need without spending more than you have to. When your wallet needs a little TLC, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.