Insecure

Creator and star Issa Rae has helped fuel a TV revolution through her HBO series “Insecure” by focusing on something very basic: the struggles of an awkward black girl and her best friend to find love and personal fulfillment in Los Angeles. Indeed, the YouTube series that helped earn Rae a deal with HBO was called “Awkward Black Girl,” and it featured her playing a twentysomething named J, stuck in a dead-end job, convinced that the two worst things in the world were to be awkward and black. The pilot for “Insecure”—developed with Larry Wilmore, former star of Comedy Central’s “The Nightly Show”—expanded on that world. Rae plays Issa Dee, a twentysomething working for a rudderless nonprofit, who is best friends with up-and-coming lawyer Molly Carter (Yvonne Orji); in the show’s impressive first season, Issa is dumped by her longtime boyfriend after admitting she’d cheated on him. But the series’ second season builds on that promising start, showing the unique friendship between Issa and Molly, Issa’s struggles to move on, and her attempt to confront anti-Latino racism from a black person at her job. For creating a series that authentically captures the lives of everyday young, black people in modern society, “Insecure” wins a Peabody Award.