By Gen Terblanche18 April 2023

Adulting Season 1 episode 5 recap: Bad decisions, deadly consequences

Bro, what are you doing?! This week in Adulting on Showmax the guys are grilling each other about their choice of women and dishing out dire warnings and predictions left and right. But they’re also giving us cool hints to make time for our BFFs during workout sessions and lunch breaks, or while helping them set up a surprise birthday party for their wife … because their mistress suggested it. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch and come back because this is Adulting’s most shocking episode yet.

What happened in Adulting episode 4?

Thirty-somethings Bonga (Thembinkosi Mthembu) the success story, toyboy Vuyani (Luthando ‘BU’ Mthembu), cheating suburban dad Mpho (Thabiso Rammusi) and carjacker Eric (Nhanhla Kunene) have been ride-or-die friends since their university days studying engineering. Now, in their 30s, they’re having to face the mistakes they’ve made.

In episode 4 Vuyani got a reality check when he had to stay with his disapproving parents while sugar mama Beth (Winnie Ntshaba) threw wild orgies behind his back. Mpho and his wife Zithulele (Lungile Duma) clashed over sex becoming part of her never-ending list of her jobs around the house, so he hooked up with his new Sun City mistress, Phindile (Seipati Mahamu). Eric’s grandmother MaGetty (Mam’Nandi Nyembe) and her pastor (Gabriel Mini) arranged peace talks with his baby mama Natasha (Sikelelwa Vuyeleni) and her mother (Busiswa Mambi), but Natasha deliberately needled Eric until he exploded. Eric then blew any last chance of custody when he took their daughter (Siphesihle Khanyile) to Gold Reef City after she ran away from home. And Bonga asked his tenderpreneur business partner Sello’s (Isaac Gampu) blessing to date Sello’s sister Nkanyezi (Londeka Shishi) and opened his heart to her on top of a mountain.

The meddling mistress

Guys, is it okay for the side chick to follow the wife on Instagram and like all her pics? Absolutely not? Well, that’s what Eric tells Mpho. But Mpho is willing to put up with a little “mistake” once Phindile promises to unfollow Zithulele. It’s a good thing she did, though, because she’s taken note of Zithulele’s birthday, which is the very next day.

And when Mpho admits that he’s forgotten, she offers to let him have the designer handbag she’s just bought for herself (provided he pays her back), and coaches him into the non-lazy way of celebrating a loved one’s birthday. Isn’t. She. Just. So. Nice? Mpho is delighted, and Eric and Vuyani help him to pull together an amazing surprise party in under 24 hours, including a full guest list, balloon arch, catering, and a birthday throne. But just when Mpho is ready to get his “reward” in the bedroom, Phindile calls to see how things went.

Mpho doesn’t realise it, but the call is coming from outside his house. So now we have to ask: did Phindile leave something in that handbag? A tracker? A calling card? Sexy snaps?

Can you be a “vers” man?

Vuyani has been insisting that Bonga’s barking up the wrong tree with Nkanyezi for a while now. And during a bro session at the gym, he warns Bonga that he and Nkanyezi both need to be top dog, and doubts Bonga’s ability to surrender power. It feels like sour grapes, but Sello’s also expressing doubts, and Bonga’s insistence that he wants a strong woman is put to the test – and fails – when work calls while they’re making out and he switches off her call halfway through so they can get back to it.

Nkanyezi might laugh that off once. But only once. And when Nkanyezi invites Bonga as her plus one to an important work event, he gets a real taste of what his life with her might be like. Nkanyezi’s boss Mike (Seokate Tsubane) challenges Bonga’s qualifications and position, then whisks her away from him, with his hand possessively on the bare skin of Nkanyezi’s back (we see you, creeper) to a huddle with more “important” people. Bonga is left stranded at a party where he doesn’t know anyone and as the evening wears on, his expression sinks into boredom and irritation. But in bed afterwards, Bonga tells her that he loves her, and Nkanyezi, after hesitating, says it back.

PS: you want to remember the epic saying Bonga impressed Mike with, it’s “Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own”, attributed to banker Nathan Rothschild.

Young & dumb

Beth continues to abuse Vuyani physically and emotionally, and is showing signs of trying to isolate him from his friends. They’re having a sexy bubble bath (if that’s where you like toes to go) when she assaults him, quite painfully, and warns him that his naughty bits belong to her, and to keep all other women out of the new car she gave him.

So of course he runs off and does the opposite, offering a ride to a hot young woman outside the gym. Amahle (Sibongile Gungu) is a university student – inexperienced enough to fall for the vague story Vuyani spins her about working in talent management, and naive enough to swing the power dynamic back in his favour. He ostentatiously wines and dines Amahle in a peak cringe scene. But when the waiters start tapping their watches and pointedly putting chairs upside down on tables around them, Vuyani tells Amahle that they can’t go back to his place … for reasons.

It might be a good thing because Amahle seems beyond the stage of sober consent. But Beth interrupts him anyway to call him back home to take care of a “bust geyser” that turns out to be her just wanting someone to watch The Real Housewives with. Adulting fans, which Housewives series do you think she’s into?

We gasped!

Zithuele’s birthday is a night of horrors for Eric. The cop who got him out of jail back in episode 1 wants the R150 000 Eric still owes him in bribe money (so did Bonga not give him the money after all?) and he has to steal a lot of luxury cars, fast.

But Eric has to abruptly pull out of a hijacking when the car he pulls over turns out to belong to Natasha’s fiance Cyril (Fezile Mkhize). Not only is Ncumisa in the back of the car, she recognises him and calls him daddy, which shocks him into fleeing the scene with his partner in crime. He’s just contemplating where his choices have brought him when Natasha confronts him at home, having seen past Ncumisa’s efforts to protect Eric.

During a fight, Natasha pulls him up short when she reveals that she doesn’t love Cyril or even want to have sex with him. She’s doing everything to make sure Ncumisa grows up in a safe, stable environment – something neither she nor Eric can give her on their own. Emotional walls come down when she tells Eric that she believes that he’s a good father and a good person, but he’s not in a good place to raise a child.

Whatever wild chemistry they once had roars back into life and they have sex on the hood of her car, until she comes to her senses and drives off. But while Eric is telling MaGetty that he’ll never see his child again, and asking to come back to her church, Natasha runs into bad luck. She’s stopped on a bridge when another carjacker comes out of the shadows to hijack her and shoots her dead as she tries to escape.

The episode ends with Eric calling Bonga after the police tell him what’s happened. All the guys race to support Eric and Ncumisa as they stand, horrified, at the crime scene. What more can life throw at them? We’ll find out on Monday, 24 April.

Watch the trailer for Adulting

Who’s who in Adulting: Meet 4 ride-or-die BFFs

Thembinkosi Mthembu plays Bonga: The Alpha. Hot bod. Daddy issues. R80 million tender burning a hole in his pocket.
Luthando ‘BU’ Mthembu plays Vuyani: Madlisa. Joker. Professional escort with expensive tastes. But check the sell-by date before buying.
Thabiso Rammusi plays Mpho: The Family Man. Traditional husband. Father of two. But a dead bedroom has him on the prowl.
Nhlanhla Kunene plays Eric: Gintsa. Loving dad. Great friend. Crazy ex-boyfriend. Carjacker, and off the rails gangster.

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