Adulting Season 2 episode 5 recap: New Year, old me

Adulting Season 2 has our four gents ‒ Bonga (Thembinkosi Mthembu), Vuyani (Luthando ‘BU’ Mthembu), Mpho (Thabiso Rammusi) and Eric (Nhlanhla Kunene) ‒ back in the game, and back making the same mistakes. Episode 5 rings in the new year and centres on the growing honestly between Bonga and his dad, Eric’s toxic relationship with Minki, the decisions that Mpho makes because of sex, and Vuyani playing middle man between his “clients”, and his girlfriend’s Gucci lifestyle. Watch Adulting S2 now. New episodes every Monday. 

Watch the trailer for Adulting S2 

What happened in Adulting S2 episode 4? 

Eric’s girlfriend Minki (Samkelo Ndlovu) claimed wife rights, took his cash and stole his car. Mpho spent his contracting cash on paying off his wife Zithulele’s (Lungile Duma) car, and paying for a nanny for his baby (Thingoentle Ndlovu) with his mistress, Palesa (Diddy Padi). Vuyani nearly got caught in the middle of a “workout” with his client Portia (Thembi Seete), and he found out that his law student girlfriend, Zelda’s (Obakeng Kgwedi), real goal was to be rich, not to play happy families with him. And Bonga clashed with his deadbeat dad (Bongani Gumede) until he found out that dad’s bravado was masking his pain from cancer. 

Being your father’s father 

Bonga’s dad is hellbent on eating, drinking and being merry until Bonga figures out how to use his priorities to manipulate him into agreeing to undergo surgery. The two keep stepping on thorns as they try to build a father-son relationship from nothing, with Bonga barely able to treat his father as an elder, let alone a father.  

But with death looming, dad confesses to Bonga that he and Bonga’s mom weren’t even that serious (from, of course, his own perspective) when she fell pregnant with Bonga and that he married her because it was his duty as a man. Bonga’s dad admits that he wanted to be a good father and husband, and that his mother was a good woman. But when he “failed to be the man of the house” (a phrase that he and Bonga are going to have to unpack), he started avoiding their home out of shame.  

Second family, part 2 

Mpho wakes up to Palesa bringing him breakfast, and instantly blames her for the fact that he dozed off after sex instead of going home to his wife. Fortunately for him, though, Zithulele assumes he had a late contracting shift and she’s too caught up in rushing off to her radio interview to take in his slept-in look. Later when Mpho visits Palesa and the baby during his lunch break, the two have a seemingly adult discussion about how they’ll carry on their affair, no strings, while Mpho stays present in their daughter’s life. It’s everything Mpho wants, but can he respect Palesa’s boundaries? Can she respect his? Place your bets.  

Uncomfortable truths 

When the guys meet up, they beg Mpho to tell them when he wants them to cover for him with Zithulele. And Eric scolds Bonga for acting as if he’s happy to start ordering his father a coffin, while Mpho unwittingly twists the knife when he quips that Bonga acts just like his father in that he refuses to go to anyone for help.  

Then Vuyani undermines Mpho by playing his recording of Zithulele’s MacG podcast interview, which Vuyani compares to being like listening to Jada Pinkett Smith talk about her marriage with Will Smith. Back home Mpho confronts Zithulele about airing their business to the whole country. And he brushes her off when Palesa sends him an emergency text … only to find out that the emergency is really a booty call. 

Double dipping 

When Zelda hints that her boss has offered to pay for her Zanzibar trip and got her a new cellphone, Vuyani asks whether someone is double dipping in the sugar daddy jar. And speaking of presumption, a new gym client named Cindy (Londiwe Nene) introduces herself to Vuyani after hearing about the intense workouts he’s been giving her friend Portia. One private workout session later, Cindy is screaming praises, and Vuyani is buying Zelda a fancy new purse. Who needs a trip to Zanzibar when you can flash around a real Gucci Dionysus in green leather (priced at just under R30 000)? 

Toxic shock 

Eric and Minki have sex for breakfast before Minki makes proper breakfast for MaGetty, and tells her to take her blood pressure medication so she can look good in Minki and Eric’s wedding pictures.  

Never has blood pressure medication been more urgently prescribed! MaGetty is horrified by how easily Minki is leading Eric down the garden path, and warns Minki to stop building pretty fantasies about being a mommy to Eric’s daughter, Ncumisa (Siphesihle Khanyile). And later when the earrings come off between Minki and another woman after Minki claims that the woman was trying to “steal” Eric from her, Eric just walks away from the fight.  

Stronger together? 

Bonga sees first-hand how his father’s insistence of pushing people away to be “strong” leaves him without care or comfort when he needs it most. But Bonga knows how to be stubborn, and it’s bribery time when Bonga tells dad to get well so they can watch football together.  

Promises will have to wait because it looks like dad is out of time. And Bonga’s friends arrive at the hospital to support him, which, in their case, means everyone calling each other out on their secrets, from affair babies to prostitution, to the absolute insanity that is Minki.  

Eric acts completely unhinged as he leaves the hospital, goes to Minki’s family’s house, and starts yelling at their door for her and waving a gun at her mother! He even starts yelling Natasha’s name, confusing Minki with Ncumisa’s dead mother. When Minki arrives home, she’s clearly living for the drama that Eric has brought to her door. But in a moment of horrified clarity, as the episode ends, Eric tells Minki that it’s over between them for real. 

Which mistake will the gents finally leave behind them in 2024? We’ll find out in episode 6. 

Who’s who in Adulting: the Big Four 

Thirty, flirty and still raising hell, Adulting’s four big boys – Bonga, Eric, Vuyani and Mpho – have been inseparable since they were at university together.  

• Thembinkosi Mthembu plays Bonga: The Alpha. Hot bod. Daddy issues. Single, rich, ambitious and catnip to women. Bonga is a construction and development project manager. 
• Luthando ‘BU’ Mthembu plays Vuyani: Madlisa. Joker. Fashionista. The former escort seems to have found his niche – and his financial independence – as a personal trainer…until temptation makes him sweat. 
• Thabiso Rammusi plays Mpho: The Family Man and father to two young boys. Traditional husband. Reformed cheater, or so he claims. Mpho is an electrical engineer and salary man whose money stretches to comfort, but not luxury. 
• Nhlanhla Kunene plays Eric: Gintsa. Loving dad. Great friend. Hair trigger temper. Now that he’s done his time for hijacking crimes, he’s determined to rebuild himself. But when it comes to women, he can’t resist a baddie. 

Watch Adulting S2 now. New episodes every Monday. 

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