I was
hooked on Nova from Queen Sugar’s
opening scene, and while the show has taken her places that aren’t to my taste,
she’s still a complex character with keen intelligence and occasionally more passion
than sense. Whether I’m cheering for her
or she aggravates me, she’s always interesting to watch (a few Nova-related
spoilers.)
Nova is
many things. She grows her own pot that
she gives out to some friends/family and sells to others. She’s an investigative journalist whose dig
through the criminal justice system has grown deeply personal as she takes on
the local police department for systemic bias, and her reporting career leads
her to writing a memoir about the Black experience filtered through the lens of
her family. She has strong spirituality tied to the earth and what it gives,
and while some dismiss her beliefs as voodoo paganism, others look to her for
healing. Even as she is a devoted lover
(rather than using the term “bi” or “pansexual,” she eschews a specific label
and instead describes herself as being attracted to souls rather than gender,)
she is fiercely independent and won’t allow herself to be defined by those she
loves.
It all
makes for a really intriguing combination of traits that gel even when they
feel like they shouldn’t. From the
start, we see Nova’s pride, determination, and passion. She’s a strong character who instantly clashes
with Charley, who is also very strong but comes at things from an entirely
different angle. Over the course of the
show, we see how these qualities can work for both good and ill in Nova.
This is a
woman with a talent for knowing what she wants and going after it. She’s deeply compassionate, and when she
learns about Too Sweet’s unjust incarceration, she follows the story like a dog
with a bone, fighting to make the system safer and fairer for all marginalized boys
and young men while at the same time advocating strongly for bettering Too
Sweet’s situation in particular. It’s
something of a rabbit hole, and once she goes down it, there’s no coming out
unless she’s about to bring real change with her. Although her drive to help and her empathy
for Too Sweet are undeniably good, they lead her to do reckless things, risking
her own well-being and career by challenging the police department and spending
money she doesn’t have to bolster Too Sweet’s legal defense.
These
traits work through Nova’s relationships as well. As we see, first with Calvin and later with
Chantal, Robert, and other partners, Nova uses her strength to defend her own
needs in relationships. Despite her love
for Calvin, she finds that there is too great a divide between them to sustain
what they have. When Chantal tries to insert herself too overtly in Nova’s
fight for Too Sweet, Nova feels that Chantal is valuing Nova’s professional
connections/platform over Nova’s actual voice.
Robert shares Nova’s desire to create change, but she’s wary of the way
he goes about it, wading too far into making nice in “enemy territory” for her
view. In every case, it’s a delicate balancing act, because while it’s right
for Nova to fight for what she wants in relationships, she can be guarded to
the point that she’s ready to pull the plug at the first sign of trouble (this
quality can also apply to her siblings at times, especially Charley.) If she wants to move forward, she needs to
recognize the good within something imperfect and more carefully weigh whether
it’s worth holding onto.
Frequently
the best thing about Nova is her dedication to social causes and fighting
injustice, but that very thing can fuel her more unfortunate impulses too. This
is most clearly exemplified in Nova’s book, in which she airs huge amounts of
the family’s dirty laundry in the name of “starting a conversation of healing”
in the Black community. She’s so tied up in the goal of what she wants the book
to accomplish that she never thinks seriously about how her family will feel
about having all their shameful moments put out in the open. As a result, the
book brings Nova tremendous success and appears to do just what she wanted it
to, but at the same time, it pulls her and her family apart, setting everyone against
her because she was more focused on the mission than on individual people. That’s
usually her biggest downfall, and as she tries to rebuild going forward, she
needs a way to keep sight of both.
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