I didn’t want to watch the polygamist or any new series coming out because they tend to be woke and have meaningless plotlines, but the polygamist has been talked about so much that I had to watch it. First of all, I don’t have Netflix at home or even a television, so I don’t know much about what is going on out there. I have a decent laptop for writing and working, or maybe listening to a podcast. I try not to consume mainstream media propaganda and stories. While I scroll TikTok or IG once in a while, I came across skits and content about the polygamist, so I decided to check it out out of curiosity.
It is a new series, so I made an order at my local movie shop, they managed to locate it and download it for me. The first part was done, now I had to look for the subtitles because the cast is speaking Shaka Zulu’s language. After struggling, I managed to get the subtitles, and that was it. I started watching the 22 episodes, and it was quite a drama.
The casts are perfect for their roles, the acting is decent, and the theme is very African. A rich traditional African man with many women at his disposal.
It is a simple theme that has been explored many times, and I wasn’t expecting anything new. A simple reminder of our culture and what can go wrong in a polygamous home if a man loses control of his family. Hidden wives and illegitimate kids with daddy issues and a bit of humour here and there.
I won’t talk so much about the drama and the plotlines because it is nothing new. I have seen worse than that, so it didn’t scare me or get me charged emotionally. It more or less got me laughing a bit and feeling bad for a few characters who were making boneheaded decisions that were going to be catastrophic, like Sarah giving a dome to her friend’s boyfriend in her friend’s bedroom.
Nothing good comes out of such decisions. Jonasi, the main character, also has a habit of doubling down on one bad decision after another till he dies for refusing to take medication.
Aside from that, here are the guys who stole the Show and made it worth watching.
JONASSI
The leading man, the main mayne. The talented ladies’ man and the philanderer with an insatiable appetite for new pussy. He couldn’t get enough of women, and anything in a skirt goes. He had been a player since childhood, according to the flashbacks and some of his women who know him from way back knows his ways.
The man had been around the block for moons, and he keeps getting around. The player with no endgame whose luck finally ran out when he got a House In Virginia (pun intended).
He acted out his scenes well; he is a bit convincing as a Playboy and an alpha provider. And even his innuendos and seductions are decently carried out; they can pass for a good seduction, and he seems like a cool gamer.
He gets worse as the series progresses and turns abusive as he goes down a spiral of depression and loses control of his affairs with women.
The women he has affairs with are mainly from his social circle, his employees, his daughter’s friend etc., and he is not smart for that.
Another thing that makes me like his character is his name, I have a long-time friend called exactly that, same pronunciation, different spelling. My friend is John Huss. He is Jonasi…and that leads us to my second favorite character, who also happens to have a similar name to a friend of mine.
We all could see someone we know in Jonasi. I saw people close to me who had that lifestyle and ended exactly like he did, so his character brought back some old memories.
Even the last scene, where his other second family tries to steal his corpse from the funeral home, has happened to my family at some point. One of my aunts died a while back; she had been widowed for over 30 years and left her husband’s home when he passed away. She later rebuilt her life and her own home, where she passed away.
When my aunt passed on, his husband’s family, whom she had not been in communication with for over 30 years, came crawling out of the woodwork demanding her body and threatening us with court orders. We had to take her corpse and bury her at night since we didn’t have time for such nonsense as fighting over a dead body. Such people are coming back to take what the dead have left behind and stress us with weird legal cases. You can’t suddenly be interested in someone when they are dead, and yet you had not been in communication for 3 decades. Marry from good families young people…back to the polygamist.
FREEDOM
I like him because I have a female friend called exactly that. I also like him because he is a free spirit and brings some humour to the series. He is a bit of a bad boy who drinks too much and doesn’t give a shit about what is going on. As everyone is running up and down, stressing about what is happening, he seems to enjoy strip clubs, smoking weed, and dropping one-liners here and there. When his friend Menzi tells him that his dad is marrying a subordinate from work, he remarks, “Your father loves you so much he brought you a second mum”.
Freedom seems like the perfect candidate for a seducer in that series; he has the attributes of a player down to the Tee, I would even go further and say he is the most convincing character in that show. Jonasi has authority, but freedom has the vibe, the looks, and the edge needed for a Playboy. He is also challenging and provocative in a cool way. I saw myself in that character.
LINDANI
She seems to have grown up way too fast. She is a fly chick from a tough neighborhood who is already working while in high school. Her mum doesn’t care much, so she is left alone to taste life at a bit younger age. Unlike her friend Mpume, who is sheltered and a bit spoilt or naïve, she seems to know too much for her age, and that’s how she finds herself having affairs with old men she has no business dealing with.
She is playing her boyfriend Xolani like a board game and he doesn’t like it. She even tries paternity fraud on him, but thank God Xolani doesn’t bite and refuses to accept that the pregnancy she has is his.
She might have been depicted as a school gal, but she takes her ‘man’ to the strip club and gives his ‘sugar daddy’ a pole dance and a BJ in the back stage, so she is a wild kid. I don’t support PDF activities, though.
MENZI
He is one of my worst characters. He has crushed on Lindani, her sister’s friend, for years, but he has what they call ‘gwababa’ in South Africa (the fear of talking to someone you find romantically attractive or are interested in, i.e., approach anxiety). His dad, though, doesn’t have ‘gwababa’. His baba no gwababa (pun intended). His dad, Jonasi, is a natural flirt.
Menzi has no confidence at all, zero social intuition or tact. His friend is ‘freedom,’ and he tries to put him on some game, but dude is just a slug, so I won’t dwell on him. He gets to finally bang Lindani in the last episode during his father’s memorial service in the washrooms, so he finally got her, but in real life, such a guy has no chance with a baddie or gamer chick like that. And besides, Lindani was his late dad’s mistress, so it is gross that he is smashing a gal he personally saw give his dad a BJ in the backroom of a strip club.
SARAH
She is quite hysterical, a troubled illegitimate daughter of Jonasi. And she seems to have some serious daddy issues. She desires a family so badly that she is willing to cause chaos just to be seen and recognized as Jonasi’s daughter. She wants the life of Jonasi’s ‘real’ kids, and she makes a lot of unnecessary demands.
If I was her, I would be content with the things Jonasi is doing for me, even as a secret child born out of wedlock. The gal was a wildcard all along; she even tried seducing her uncle, who had raised her. When her uncle tells her mum what happened, her mum says, “I thought I was raising a child, but I am raising a slut”. The lack of a strong father figure messes her up. The highlight is when her mother takes her to a witch doctor to exorcise her. Only that the witch doctor doesn’t find evil spirits in her, all she tells her is that she’s been neglected for too long by her dad, and she’d better move on and forget him.
JOYCE
She plays Jonasi’s fiercely loyal wife who finally gets fed up with his infidelities. She has spent some time cleaning after him as he engages in activities that tarnish the family name and cast them in a bad light. She decided to end him and had tried to do so multiple times during the show.
She tried to shoot him at first, but got gun-shy. Jonasi was deluded when he caught her with a gun in her hand and thought she was trying to kill herself. The gun was aimed at Jonasi just before he opened the door.
On another occasion, she tried poisoning him, but again he survived. At last, she used the last weapon that she knew would work with Jonasi, which is sex. And Sex is a powerful weapon. She sent a gal to infect him with the deadly virus, and that worked perfectly.
It was vicious of her to act that way. Jonasi had tried to divorce her in the beginning of the show, but she refused, and even decided to arrange for a marriage between Jonasi and his mistress, who was making Jonasi want a divorce.
Joyce went through a lot with Jonasi and had been a big contributor to his success so she felt owed a big one by Jonasi. She felt betrayed by his secrets and infidelities so she decided to his end just as she was the beginning of his success.
The Rest of the Characters
Matipa and Essi were not duped as such by Jonasi, according to my analysis. Essi had known Jonasi and his ways since childhood, so she was not shocked by some of his actions. She is equally good at keeping secrets and playing along, and she loved Jonasi till the end; she didn’t flinch a second. Essi is a hood chick if you ask me, and she could play along to the tune. She was down with the dirty stuff.
Matipa, on the other hand, was a mistress who kept pushing the line. First, she was dating Jonasi’s brother and dumped him to go shag Jonasi for a promotion at work. She wanted Jonasi so bad that she tried to get him to divorce his wife for her. When things got aggressive in the series, she left her kids and fled, which I didn’t like. She made bad choices throughout the film.
Jonasi’s brother was loyal and protective, which made him a very likable character throughout. He is believable as a big brother and a strong family member. He was conscious all through.
Pour Conclure
It is a good series to watch, not for the big screen, but a good flick for a Saturday afternoon with friends. It is so African and entertaining, like many South African series. I have seen reels of South African series on social media, and they usually have a good sense of humour and well-written scripts.
One particular funny scene is when Matipa comes from the hospital after being infected with gonorrhoea to confront Jonasi, but she finds a fight scene of Jonasi, Lindani, and Joyce, and she points at Lindani and says, “Is this the hole I got gonorrhoea from?” That was cold.
The polygamist is adopted from a book by the same name by a Zimbabwean author, Sue Nyathi. The screenwriters, whoever they are, did a decent job of bringing it to life or bringing it home. It hit home.
