The Polygamist Season 1 Episode 22 Review: "Mr. Gomora is no more" - the funeral turns into a brawl, Mpume rewrites the obituary, and Joyce finally says the truth out loud
What happens — the short version (spoilers)
- Joyce and Menzi clash over how to mourn before the funeral starts.
- The body has already been collected by another wife, and the hierarchy resurfaces.
- Mpume's obituary refuses to flatten Jonasi into a saint or a monster.
- Joyce's speech names the cost of his appetite and brings the season's HIV history back in.
- The heir and estate talk make it clear the fight is not over, even at the grave.
Episode 22 brings the body, the lies, the wives, the children, and the money to the same funeral, then lets them all fight over what Jonasi should mean now. Joyce refuses to be polite, Mpume refuses to flatten him, and the service turns into one last family argument before the burial.
Joyce and Menzi clash over mourning before the funeral even starts, and the grief already sounds fake
The opening beats make it clear that nobody here is united by loss. Joyce wants the room to behave like a funeral. Menzi wants distance. The women around them are still doing the practical work, and the whole thing feels like a family trying to perform respect while everybody privately hates the man in the coffin.
That tension matters because it tells you the funeral is not going to settle anything. The men are not even pretending well. Joyce wants decorum, but she also wants justice. Menzi is angry in a different key. The episode lets both of those reactions exist without making either one pretty.
The body has already been moved, and the corpse becomes one more thing the wives have to fight over
When Joyce finds out the body has already been collected by the other wife, the old hierarchy snaps back into place. Even in death, Jonasi still has multiple women forced to negotiate around him. Joyce is furious, and she should be. The body is not a neutral object here. It is proof of who got access first, who got shut out, and who still gets to control the story.
That is why the line about burying her man lands so hard. Nobody is being sentimental. Everyone is staking a claim. The funeral is supposed to be a release, but the episode makes it feel like the final round of a long property dispute.
Mpume’s obituary speech turns Jonasi into a contradiction instead of a saint
The obituary is the episode’s best writing because Mpume refuses to flatten her father into either monster or martyr. She names his complexity. She says he was easy to love and hate. She gives the women around him their due. That is the point where the episode becomes more than a burial scene.
Mpume also names the women who shaped him. Joyce taught him class, Essie taught him family, and Matipa taught him determination. The speech works because it puts the whole household on record.
Joyce’s final speech brings the whole season back to Lungi, HIV, and the cost of his appetite
Joyce’s last speech is the hour’s coldest and most necessary move. She does not forgive Jonasi in the sentimental sense. She names what he did, what it cost, and why the consequences were always going to come home to him eventually. The mention of Lungi and the HIV history drags the season’s long-running sexual recklessness back into the open.
That is the real thesis of the episode. Jonasi did not just break hearts. He believed his choices had no consequences. Joyce’s speech says otherwise. It says the body remembers. The family remembers. The women remember. The funeral is the moment all of that memory becomes public.
The will, the heir talk, and the final insult make it clear that the estate is now part of the fight too
By the time Menzi gets mentioned as the heir, the episode has fully shifted from grief to legacy warfare. Money, inheritance, and who gets to carry the name are suddenly front and center again. That is the most Gomora ending possible. The man is dead, but the ownership fight is still alive.
The final note - that Menzi may not become what Jonasi was - is the season’s cleanest aftershock. The show is not promising redemption. It is promising a question. Can the next generation break the pattern, or will they just inherit the same damage in a cleaner suit? The funeral does not answer that. It just makes the question impossible to ignore.
Tiny details worth clocking
- Menzi being asked to mourn is funny until you realize he cannot fake it.
- Joyce’s anger over the body being collected first is about more than logistics.
- Mpume’s obituary works because it refuses to turn Jonasi into a cartoon.
- The Lungi and HIV material is the season’s nastiest reminder that the body keeps receipts.
- The heir talk at the end makes the death feel like a business transition, which is exactly this show’s logic.
Final verdict
Episode 22 is the season’s strongest closing argument because it refuses to let the funeral become a clean ending. Jonasi is dead, but the women are still fighting over what he did, the children are still carrying the aftermath, and the family name is still doing damage.
That is the right place to leave it. Not with peace, but with accounting. The season has spent twenty-two episodes showing how love, power, and inheritance all got twisted together in this house. The funeral finally says the quiet part out loud.
Rating: 9.1/10 - a sharp, ugly, very fitting finale that turns burial into one last argument over truth, legacy, and blame.
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Reviewed by Mira Vance · QuizFandom Editor & Lead Reviewer. Every rating is an honest per-watch assessment from the desk that also writes the quizzes — not a press release rehash.