Adulting Season 1 episode 8 recap: The season finale

What happened in the Adulting Season 1 finale? Find out whether Eric can dodge death, if Bonga will choose his boys or his babe, what Vuyani’s dad wants, and whether Mpho can win back his wife.  

NB! Major spoilers, so see the episode first! 

The season finale of Adulting on Showmax brings the guys back together. Eric has a miraculous escape from death that has him reconsidering plea deals and prison. Bonga suffers major fallout after he breaks up with Nkanyezi over his friends, and he’s in for a shock when he returns home to his mom. Vuyani wins his dad’s respect, but seems to blow off work when he finds a new sugar mama. And after a heart-to-heart with his wife, Mpho dodges divorce. By the end of the episode, the guys seem to have pushed the reset button … has anyone really learned anything? 

What happened in Adulting episode 7?  

Vuyani was back living with his parents after breaking up with his abusive sugar mama, Beth (Winnie Ntshaba), and he landed the perfect job as a super-salesman at a high-end fashion boutique. Bonga’s powerhouse girlfriend Nkanyezi (Londeka Shishi) put her foot down and demanded that he ditch his friends before they took him down with them, leading to an icy and uncomfortable weekend away between the two. And Eric punched Bonga after Bonga blamed him for the death of Eric’s baby mama Natasha (Sikelelwa Vuyeleni) during a hijacking incident. Mpho called a meeting of family elders to confront his wife Zithulele, (Lungile Duma), about her supposed infidelity with her gym instructor, only for her to turn the tables on him and expose all his infidelities and cruelties. And with four warrants out for Eric’s arrest, prison was looming despite all Bonga could do, and every bit of savings that Eric’s granny MaGetty (Mam’Nandi Nyembe) could scrape together. Desperate to bribe a cop, Eric returned to hijacking, but froze up during a heist, got shot by the driver, and was left to bleed out in the street.  

Read more about episode 7 

Read more about episode 6 

Read more about episode 5 

Read more about episode 4 

Read more about episode 3 

Read more about episode 2 

Read more about episode 1 

And now, in episode 8… 

Eric dodges death 

Bonga ignores Eric’s last, desperate, call for help because he’s preparing to go to a major work party to celebrate Nkanyezi’s promotion. But a good samaritan finds Eric bleeding out and manages to get hold of both an ambulance and Bonga. Bonga tells Nkanyezi that he’ll catch up with her at the party and races to Eric’s side, assembling the guys and reaching out to MaGetty, Natasha’s mom (Busiswa Mambi) and Eric’s daughter, Ncumisa (Siphesihle Khanyile). 

Despite everyone’s worst fears, and with a lot of medical help and bedside prayers, Eric pulls through and is soon joking with his guys and comforting Ncumisa. Bonga has a serious talk with Eric about the second chance he’s been given when Eric tries to blow off the incident, and he arranges for Eric and MaGetty to meet with a lawyer again.

Facing a harsh reality, and with Ncumisa directly telling him that she’s disappointed that he went back to hijacking, Eric weighs up his legal options: a minimum of 10 years in prison if his cases go to trial, or the possibility of as little as two years in prison if he accepts a plea deal. Natasha’s mother has had a change of heart and promised that Ncumisa can be with Eric during school holidays, so the sooner he’s a free man, the better. 

Bonga dumps Nkanyezi 

To Nkanyezi, not even a life-or-death family crisis should have stopped Bonga from networking, apparently. Eric’s crisis is the final straw for her when Bonga misses not just her celebration, but all the opportunities he would have had to make essential contacts, had he attended her work party. Even when Bonga explains how much he loves his friends, and how they’ve made him who he is, Nkanyezi demands that he drop all of them. With Nkanyezi hard-lining, Bonga chooses his ride-or-die friends over her and breaks up with Nkanyezi. How can you commit to someone who doesn’t understand loyalty? 

Bonga is not just losing her, though – when Nkanyezi’s brother Sello (Isaac Gampu) finds out that Bonga broke Nkanyezi’s heart, he promptly fires Bonga from their building site and storms off. Whatever contract they had, it looks as if Sello thinks he can wave a legal wand and dissolve it immediately … and maybe he can. Bonga’s company has just lost their biggest ever contract over a breakup. 

Needing to hit pause, Bonga visits his mother, Thandeka (Deli Malinga), back at the impressive new house he’s just built for her in their rural village. But look who has his feet up with a beer while mom’s running about serving – it’s Bonga’s deadbeat dad (Bongani Gumede), who’s come swaggering back to leech off her now that everything’s comfortable. Bonga is furious but finds himself powerless in the face of both parents presenting a united front and his mom claiming to still love his father, despite the years of pain he’s caused.  

Vuyani, Vuyani, Vuyani! 

Vuyani takes two steps forward and (maybe) one step back. His dad (Lindani Nkosi) has been nagging him about not being a man and not stepping up the whole series. But in the morning as Vuyani is moaning over his alarm clock and another day of the 9-5 grind, his dad comes into the room with coffee. For Vuyani! Dad sits down for a heart-to-heart and praises Vuyani’s efforts and work ethic.

Shocked? Vuyani certainly is. But as dad gives Vuyani the go-ahead to pursue a career in fashion since he seems to have a genuine gift, he also tries to explain where he has been coming from. Vuyani’s dad has realised that he’s been raising his son the way that his own father raised him, without accounting for the fact that they’re wildly different people growing up in differing realities, with different opportunities and the need for different skills. It’s a moment. 

But we don’t learn everything in one day. Back at work Vuyani is in for an emotional shock when Beth (Winnie Ntshaba) walks in for a shopping spree with her new fancy man, Andile (Libo Njomba) – the guy who was making a play for her in episode 2. While Vuyani is shocked at first and can’t seem to look Beth in the eye, as he watches the two together, he seems to regain his composure and even his sense of humour about the situation.

But he sees something there that he misses and wants, and soon we see him pleasuring another rich older woman, blowing off work and weighing up travelling to Dubai with her. Is he going to try to sell the idea to his boss as a kind of business trip? Will he take leave? Or will he just drop everything to go back to being a kept man? He seems to be leaning towards the third option, so uh-oh.  

Mpho dodges divorce 

Mpho goes home to plead with Zithulele to give him another chance with their marriage, and the two have a messy discussion about how and why they both wound up cheating. Zithulele lays it out there. She cheated because her gym instructor was looking at her the way that she wanted her husband to look at her. He wasn’t just checking out her butt, he was engaging with her as a whole person. And at home, she was trying to build something but drowning in 24/7 unrelenting work between the kids and the house. She didn’t have an equal partner to share not just the burden, but the utter boredom and drudgery.

And while she was never really off the clock, she was seeing Mpho going out with his friends, taking weekends away and mostly just doing as he pleased outside of his official work day. Mpho, on the other hand, had one major complaint: he missed having sex. Fortunately, as Zithulele sees it, there’s a solution to both their problems – work as a team at home and they’ll soon both have the energy to dedicate to a fulfilling marriage. But while Mpho tries (and gets a taste of the tedium that Zithulele was talking about), there are hints of an underlying resentment that they haven’t explored. Do these two also find each other boring as people?  

As the episode and season comes to a close with questions in the air, the guys are back at a bar together, playing around and talking smack about women as if not much has happened. Eric’s joking about serving two years and Bonga is all laughs … until his jaw drops over a hot lady who’s just walked in. Our ladies’ man is back in the game.  

And that’s a wrap on Adulting Season 1!  

Binge Adulting Season 1 on Showmax now.

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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