Diarra collects hot guys like my kid used to collect Pokémon.

But I digress.

On the surface, this episode gives us the same beautifully chaotic Diarra: multiple men, a treasure hunt, a gang war she accidentally started, and enough unfinished business to fill the city of Detroit. Underneath all that mess, though, something important is happening.

Diarra is growing.

Now, growth does not mean she suddenly has her shit together. Absolutely not. Diarra’s growth is still messy, inconsistent, and missing some very important facts. Still, Episode 7 shows her beginning to recognize the patterns that keep getting her into trouble. She is not out of the tunnel yet—pun completely intended—but for the very first time, she understands that she cannot find her way forward by continuing to avoid everything behind her.

Ancestral Déjà Vu

The episode begins by giving us one hell of an ancestral déjà vu. Diarra finds herself inside the Underground Railroad, fleeing from a dangerous, unhinged white woman who is trying to kill her.

That’s a hell of a déjà vu!

As Diarra moves through the dark tunnel, she prays to her ancestors and finds kinship with Dunc. Then, as if he heard her, Dunc leaves her the clue she needs to keep moving.

Like the ancestors who traveled those passages before her, Diarra goes north in search of a way out. I LOVE how the show interlaces Black history into this scene without separating it from Diarra’s personal journey. The Underground Railroad is not only part of the episode’s setting or mystery. It becomes a physical representation of Diarra’s emotional state.

She is underground. She is lost. She is being pursued by the consequences of a dangerous situation. And to survive, she has to stop moving blindly and understand the path taken by someone who came before her.

That brings me to Dunc because Dunc is not only an ancestral figure within this journey.

Dunc is Diarra’s mirror.

Dunc’s Mess Looks Familiar

Dunc was messy. He created solutions that became problems, and then those problems stacked themselves on top of his previous problems until they formed one gigantic behemoth of a problem.

Sound familiar?

Diarra identifies with Dunc because she recognizes his way of thinking. By putting herself in his shoes, she begins to understand how he might have used the Underground Railroad to conduct business, make money, and eventually leave his inheritance behind in the form of a quest for his loved ones.

But Dunc’s plan never came to fruition because the behemoth of a problem he created became his undoing.

That is the warning sitting beneath the treasure hunt. Dunc left behind an inheritance, but he also left behind the consequences of every problem he failed to resolve. Diarra is doing the same thing. Every time she tries to fix something without confronting its origin, she creates another complication.

As she works through Dunc’s actions and inactions, she begins to understand her own.

Diarra’s Romantic Behemoth

Diarra said it herself: being lost was a metaphor for her love life.

There is the man she divorced. Then there is Chris, the man she spent the entirety of Season 1 trying to find. There is Danger, the person I consider closest to her soulmate. Now there is Royce, the man she thinks she should choose because he feels like the safe, mature option.

While traveling through the Underground Railroad, Diarra thinks about all of this through the memory of Dunc and the consequences of his choices. She emerges believing she has found clarity: she needs to break up with Chris and pursue Royce because Royce is the man for her.

Mind you, at this point, she has not seen Danger yet.

You see what is wrong here? Diarra has begun adding and subtracting without knowing all the digits in the equation.

Alas, her romantic chaos is not even the only problem demanding her attention. Diarra also needs to find Dunc’s treasure and give it to Booker so that Booker will hand over the footage that could prove Chris did not kill anyone.

You see why I say shit just multiplies for Diarra?

It is like putting water on Gremlins. Every time Diarra tries to solve one problem, three more appear.

Becoming Worthy of the Treasure

But let’s talk about her moment of clarity.

One of my favorite moments is when Diarra takes a bath, sings hymns, and cleans her house as a way of making herself worthy of the treasure.

Part of the clarity she gains in the tunnel is that Dunc intended his treasure to go to someone worthy of inheriting it. That requirement hits something deep inside Diarra because she does not believe she is worthy.

She second-guesses her ability to become a mother. She continues pursuing men who lead her toward emotional dead ends. To me, that is another form of self-punishment. Sometimes we choose people who cannot give us what we need because their inevitable failure confirms what we already fear about ourselves.

But let me tell you, Diarra is growing!

She says, “Next time Chris calls, I gotta break up with him. It’s over.”

Unfortunately, fate is not on her side this time, and I wonder if it ever has been. Still, it is the thought that matters because Diarra is finally trying to make a decision instead of allowing every unresolved relationship to remain open.

Then she talks to Aja, played by Dominque Perry—and I really need to analyze this character because she is so complex and has developed so well throughout Season 2. But during this talk with Aja, Diarra shows us that her growth is like the tango: a few steps forward, then even more steps back.

Diarra announces that her plan to avoid getting re-dickmatized is to wrangle her feelings like misbehaving children. Then she gives Aja this lukewarm answer about why she shit on her potential relationship with Harley because she is avoiding telling Aja the entire truth.

And here’s the thing, folks: this is one way problems multiply when we hold back. Don’t get me wrong; the reason for holding back is sometimes admirable. Sometimes a person is trying to save someone from heartache, trauma, or whatnot, and that is awesome. Unfortunately, the results are more often than not the same because that omission becomes a floating problem that will later be exposed.

Aja is not buying Diarra’s explanation. Instead, she delivers a retort that begins with these callout microexpressions. I love people-watching, and I am telling you, facial expressions sometimes say more than words—and DomiNque Perry has those down pat!

Now, while Harley is a shitty person, Diarra deserved that callout.

Wrangling her feelings is not the same as confronting them, and she should tell her friend why she is so ambivalent about Harley. This is just another form of avoidance. So, of course, I shake my head like a disappointed parent because I’m like, “C’mon!”

But let’s look at the positive side: Diarra is finally aware that her feelings create problems. The two steps back come from the fact that she still treats those feelings as unruly things that need to be contained or omitted instead of truths that might need to be heard.

Is it growth? I mean, yes. What do you expect from a messy character? Shit is not going to be clean-cut, and you know what? Entertainment-wise, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Give me all the messiness. I love my Detroit telenovela.

So, yeah. It’s growth; early growth. Diarra can identify the problem now, even if her proposed solution is still wrong, but it’s growth.

The Investigator With a Heart of Gold

Of course, Diarra’s problems extend far beyond her collection of Pokémon-hot men. Militia Bitch and Cartier are only two of the dangers waiting for her outside her romantic orbit.

But for all Diarra’s faults, the lady knows her history. That is why I love how this character was developed. Her background as a teacher is not an accessory the writers mention and then forget. Her knowledge becomes one of the tools she uses to survive, and you know who else knows their history?

Cartier! I thought that was super cool, how this OG gangster is a Detroit history buff, but you know? That’s how it’d be in real life.

But back to Diarra.

She is an intelligent investigator with a messy personality and a heart of gold. She will go through hell trying to clean up everything and protect everyone, even when her attempts to help create more trouble for her.

I chuckle.

But let me explain. Diarra could have walked away from Booker. She could have abandoned Chris to his problems. Instead, she continues trying to save them both.

Maybe she does it because helping them makes her feel redeemed. Maybe guilt will not allow her to stop. Maybe she genuinely cares and knows she would feel guilty if she did nothing. Honestly, that last explanation makes the most sense to me because these characters are as human as real humans can be.

People rarely act for one clean reason. We love, feel guilty, seek redemption, and try to prove our worth all at the same time.

That complexity is Diarra.

So, let me take you back to the episode because it’s goooooooood. After fighting her way through the tunnel and trying to clean up all these problems, who does she find?

DANGER!

DANGERETTES, REJOICE!

And you see what I’m saying?! Everywhere Diarra goes to solve one thing, her problems multiply. This is a perfect example.

But the cutest part of this scene is Danger replying, “I’m fine,” when Diarra did not even ask him.

I HOLLERED so bad!

This episode is PACKED, y’all. Every one of Diarra’s problems shows up like they coordinated their schedules beforehand, and some even wore matching shirts, and I love it.

The Missing Piece in Diarra’s Clarity

Danger’s return reveals the major flaw in the clarity Diarra thought she found underground: she calculated without having all the numbers.

When she decided Royce was the man for her, she believed Danger was gone. He was not included in the equation. She chose Royce because he appeared mature and safe, but she made that choice without knowing Danger was alive, nearby, and still within reach.

By the end of the episode, the cracks are already forming in her so-called clarity. Diarra’s jealous comments—and the looks she gives Bailey—tell us that she is very much still interested in Danger.

Like I said before, I clocked their connection during the massages. Danger is more to Diarra than the other hot men orbiting her. They developed a level of emotional and physical intimacy that she has not reached with the others.

That does not automatically mean Danger is the right choice. It does mean that any clarity Diarra claims to have about Royce is incomplete until she admits what Danger means to her.

She cannot make an honest choice while pretending one of the options does not exist.

“Go, Diarra!”

Then Diarra returns home and finds even more problems waiting for her, including Cartier, played by Bokeem Woodbine, calling her “Private Pussy.”

My husband asked why Cartier calls her that, and I explained that Diarra is basically an investigator running loose through Detroit. That is his way of nicknaming and belittling her at the same time.

Cartier is high-key threatening Diarra and her friends. Woodbine is so talented. He completely loses himself in a role, and he goes cray-cray with Cartier in Diarra from Detroit. But yeah, Cartier is turned up a few notches in this episode, and guess what? Diarra does not back down. Instead, she goes on the offensive!

That is some real-ass growth, y’all. And honestly, it is completely relatable because exhaustion is when I stop giving a shit too. Once I am tired enough, the filter comes off.

And Diarra finally says fuck it.

She tells Cartier exactly what she intends to do, and she does not back down. I jerked my neck back and said, “Go, Diarra!”

Also, I didn’t know what risotto was either, so I don’t blame Cartier for calling it wet rice. Although I am sure that is just his way of giving the rice a nickname, the same way he gave Diarra one.

Fun fact: when I first encountered this kind of rice (they don’t make that in the Dominican Republic) I called it soupy rice.

But I digress.

What matters is that Diarra stands her ground. Her life is still chaotic, and she still does not know what—or who—she truly wants, but she is no longer reacting to every threat as if she has no power.

That is not a complete transformation. It is evidence that one has begun, and I love a good character arc.

Growth Starts With Recognition

The biggest problem in this season is still the gang war Diarra unknowingly started. But because Diarra is Diarra, she added several complicated relationships and an entire treasure hunt on top of it.

While the episode tacks on more problems that I still don’t know how Diarra and crew will resolve, I do like how Episode 6 saw Diarra being hunted by Militia Bitch, and by Episode 7, Militia Bitch is gone.

But like I said, and I hope you are catching on to the theme of this analysis, with Diarra’s growth, one solution sprouts another problem. And now we have one more.

Cartier wants the treasure, and Diarra is facing yet another difficult decision. She must figure out what she is willing to do, whom she is trying to save, and what to do about all these men circling her like planets around the sun.

So, has Diarra grown?

Yes…but perhaps “growth” is too clean a word for what we are witnessing. This episode gives us the first real step toward growth: recognition.

Diarra recognizes herself in Dunc. She sees how one solution can become another problem and how those problems can multiply until they destroy the person who created them. She understands that Chris needs to go. She realizes that avoidance is not her friend. She begins questioning whether the life she has constructed reflects what she actually wants.

Her conclusions are still incomplete. She chooses Royce without accounting for Danger. She claims she will wrangle her feelings instead of confronting them. She keeps trying to save everyone, possibly because it lets her avoid examining herself.

But Diarra is no longer completely unaware of her pattern.

That is why the Underground Railroad works so beautifully as the episode’s central metaphor. Diarra begins the episode inside a dark tunnel, running for her life and unsure of the way forward. She finds her path by studying Dunc, recognizing his mistakes, and following the evidence north.

Emotionally, she is attempting to do the same thing.

But Diarra has not escaped the tunnel yet. Knowing you are lost is not the same as finding your way out, and recognizing your avoidance is not the same as changing your behavior.

But it is a beginning.

After recognition comes choosing differently. Whether Diarra can actually do that is another question entirely.