Source: BET / BET
And just like that, it’s over. After four seasons and a TV movie finale, Being Mary Jane has come to an end, and while incredibly frustrating at times, the show featured a relatable, complicated heroine, and it will be missed.
As for the the two-hour finale (maybe an hour and 30 when you subtract all the commercials), there was a lot to unpack, and not enough time to really sit with it. However, for our protagonist, the main issue was that, being impulsive, she went and had a frozen embryo she owned implanted in her 48 hours after boyfriend Justin seemingly threw in the towel on their relationship after she chose Kara for the executive producer opportunity at Great Day USA. However, he decided to come back and pop the question, and though she said yes, she didn’t tell him about the major decision she already made, and the fact that she could be pregnant.
She was after all, and when she broke the news to Justin, he decided that even though he loved her, he couldn’t play daddy to someone else’s child, so he left.
As we jumped forward in time, a very pregnant MJ ran into an ex-boyfriend, Beauregard Mercer, or Beau for short, played by Morris Chestnut, while going to birthing classes. They rekindled their flame (not fully though — she always seemed not fully into it), and she even throws the pregnant P at him, which he catches.
When MJ goes into labor sooner than expected due to preeclampsia and has the baby prematurely, Beau steps up to help her care for him (Albert James Patterson is his name), and seems like the perfect catch. He is sensitive, he is supportive of her life without trying to change it, and did we mention he’s fine and wealthy?
However, Justin ends up back in the picture when Kara goes on hiatus after having surgery for a mastectomy following her breast cancer diagnosis. She felt like he and MJ’s story wasn’t complete and tried to play cupid.
The tension between Beau and Justin is strong from the minute they meet, which is understandable. Eventually, a fight breaks out between them at the GDU office. Beau, feeling insecure that MJ seemed to be defending Justin, walks out on her and tells her to call him when she figures out what and whom she really wants.
Well, it seems she wants Justin. She finds him on his ranch in New Jersey and they reconnect, literally, making love in the damn stable where he holds his horses. When they rush back to her apartment so that she can tend to her son and her nurse can tend to a family emergency, Justin takes to the baby, even singing Wizard of Oz tunes to him at one point. In the midst of that, Beau returns (why she opened the door when folks started knocking, I have no clue), apologetic and ready to propose, out of nowhere, to MJ. Unfortunately, she has already made her decision, and at the wedding, which starts and ends the finale movie, we see that she finally finds her happy ending with…Justin.
I saw this coming a mile away. He’s literally just as complicated as MJ and they had a sexual energy that it was clear she didn’t want to pass up on. And while Beau was a really sweet guy, he was a tad too eager, and you know MJ loves a struggle love over a dedicated man. We learned that with Lee.
Still, her decision to choose Justin in the end wasn’t widely embraced by fans of the series. Folks on Twitter felt he’d walked out on her too many times and while fine, was problematic. Check out all the reactions to MJ being #TeamJustin when everyone else seemed to be #TeamBeau by hitting the flip:
