Star – After the Set, It’s the Afterparty

By: Gladys Luna

The episode opens with Cotton (Amiyah Scott) and Star (Jude Demorest) waiting to be tattooed and having a conversation about the reappearance of Cotton´s ex-girlfriend Nakisha (Ashani Roberts), looking for “Arnold” to tell him that they have a son that wants to meet him. Cotton confesses that she is not ready to tell the truth to Carlotta (Queen Latifah) and doesn’t know how to deal with it while Star recommends her not to say anything yet.

Andy (Elijah Kelley) meets with his parents Mr. Smith (Juan Pablo Gamboa) and Mrs. Smith (Susan Gallagher) now they know he wants to be in the music industry. His parents don’t agree with their son decisions and Andy believes that only because they adopted him, doesn’t mean he has to do everything they say. Finally, they decide to support him on his career but on one condition: that the young man doesn’t drop the internship he is in, which only makes Andy to think that they don’t believe he will ever make it as an artist.

Carlotta and Maurice (Lance Gross) about the future of Take Three. Miss Bruce (Miss Lawrence) is also there with them when Cassie (Brandy) walks in announcing she has some new business opportunities. Right after, she spots Maurice, but Carlotta stops her immediately telling her that he is her man.  A while later, Andy visits Angel (Evan Ross) who is now living in his uncle´s RV and tells him everything that happened with his parents.  Right that moment Simone (Brittany O’Grady) walks in and gives Angel a cup of coffee and then sits on his lap and kisses him. Andy asks her about “his” cup of coffee, but the girl tells him she is not his wife. Andy leaves a while later and meets with Cassie who is on the phone outside having a very interesting conversation about wanting her money in return. Andy promises that he won’t tell anything he listened to and the woman suggests him to go have a drink with her, but he declines. Then, Cassie asks him if he is hungry and the man seems to give it a thought.

Alex (Ryan Destiny) visits Noah (Luke James), who had seemed to spend the night on the couch of the recording studio while making “love songs.” Alex had brought him some food. The man takes a picture of him and Alex while holding the bag she just gave him and then they share some kisses.

Later that day, Maurice introduces Natalie Knight (Meagan Good) to everyone in the room. The woman announces that she had made some arrangements for them to play at Tallahassee A&M U. Noah is not so happy with him doing concerts at universities, but Natalie convinces him that it is the best for now. However, she advises that whoever gets to be the more successful with the college kids will surely be the best next thing.

Nakisha visits Cotton again looking for Arnold. She believes that Cotton is her ex´s girlfriend but then Cotton confesses that she is “Arnold.” The woman believes she is been played. After a moment, Nakisha finally believes Cotton´s words when she sees how serious the other woman is and is surprised of what she sees. She tells Cotton that her son wants to meet his father and not what he had become. She then leaves the house in a haste.

Noah convinces Carlotta to let him go to Tallahassee to support the girls of Take Three, even though he made himself clear when he said to Natalie that he didn’t agree with it. Jahil (Benjamin Bratt) enters the scene and confirms with Carlotta about Natalie´s plan of giving both of their groups some good exposure.

Mariela (Camila Perez) is helping Derek (Quincy Brown) to get out of his chair when the young man starts kissing her. All of a sudden Ruby (Juanita Jennings) enters the room and gets mad at the scene before her. Mariela decides to leave and afterwards Derek argues with Ruby for her behavior and promises that as soon as he is on his own again he´ll leave the house. He knows she´s had enough of him and he feels the same way about her.

The girls are having her usual night chat when Carlotta arrives and tells them they should go to bed soon since they have a long day ahead. They are supposed to arrive at Tallahassee as early as possible and get ahead in the game, but then Alex shows them a video of Andy and Angel who have seemed to have the same thought since they are already in Florida. The next day, the girls arrive on campus and see a sorority group of young ladies putting on some very good moves. There is a stand there where some Take Three merchandise is on display. Alex sees Jackson (Matthew Noszka) there and encourages Star to go talk to him. The man explains that Maurice needed an extra hand and he needed the money, so he accepted to go and help. He also wants to take the chance and take Star on a date, but she refuses by alleging she is on tour and needs to be focused. Noah arrives to the campus as a way to support the girls, but Alex assures him that he is not helping in any way so she asks him to leave and he does looking very disappointed.

At Carlotta´s salon, Cassie is playing some cards game with the customers. Miss Bruce is upset at the woman and asks her to stop, but the woman takes her to another side of the room and tells her of a new business she just had and wants her to be part of it. Miss Bruce declines the offer since she has just gotten back to Carlotta´s good side. Cotton shows up and greets them. Miss Bruce asks her about her “baby mama thing” making Cotton confess the truth about her current situation. Her aunt Cassie wants to take part in the situation, but Cotton assures her that she will take care of it herself.

Back in Florida, Andy decides to steal the girls’ speaker and people start to gather around him. Star has had enough of the man antics and tells him that he is trying to steal their shine because he doesn’t have one of his own. And to put an end to his show, she asks him not to be mad at her just because he doesn’t know who he is. Next scene we see Andy walking the stairs of a room until he steps in front of a mirror and imagines himself performing in front of an audience while we hear Martin Luther King Jr. speech on the background.

Derek is enjoying a moment with Mariela when Ruby walks in, drunk and hungry only to ruin the moment for them.

It´s performance night and the first ones to hit the stage are Take Three. The girls are doing it pretty well until Andy goes to the sound engineer and asks him to mess up with the girls’ audio. Jackson, who is standing behind him, sees everything and knows something bad is going to happen. The students start to boo them and the girls are forced to leave the stage, ashamed of what just happened. Next, we see Star as she messes up Andy´s tires as a revenge now that Jackson has told her the truth. Andy walks outside truly mad when he finds out what Star is doing and the arguing begins. Angel defends Andy and insults Star, which makes Simone to yell at him. Jackson almost punches Andy when he tries to hit Star. Jahil argues with Carlotta about what happened and then, he bends over while grabbing his chest. Carlotta believes that he is on drugs again, but he confesses that he has a heart condition and asks her not to tell Cotton about it.

Noah shows up on the stage and announces his favorite group. Take Three go on stage again amidst the students “booing,” but they manage to convince them of their talent when they start to sing “acapella” and accompanied by the sorority group of steppers they saw earlier that day. When they are done, DJ Shorty Kool (Onye Eme-Akwari) announces he´ll be having an after party with the girls and Noah and everyone seem to be enjoying the moment. Suddenly, Tammi (Adriyan Rae), one of Noah’s fan, enters the place and starts to grind against him. Star tells Alex who immediately stands next to Noah and asks the girl to leave not before insulting each other a little bit. When Tammi is finally gone, Alex tells Noah she doesn’t like to be embarrassed but the man doesn’t take her seriously, making the girl to leave the place while people around them are filming everything.

Maurice scolds Andy for his behavior towards Star and for jeopardizing the tour. The girl is also there and is not making it any easy for the young man to control himself. Maurice takes Andy out of the internship and tells him that if he continues to behave like that he will take him out of the tour as well.

Ruby announces that Mariela is back. When the girl enters the house, Derek asks her to stay right where she is. He confesses he wants to be with her and asks her not to pay attention to what her grandmother has to say. He slowly stands up and using his walker he starts to move towards Mariela while Ruby watches them from the other side of the room.

Cotton has asked Nakisha to come back and she accepted. They seem to be getting to very good terms. Nakisha shows Cotton the picture of their son. Carlotta and Jahil arrive at the place as per Cotton´s request. They both look amazed by the other woman in the room and then, Cotton introduces her as “the mother of their grandson” much to the surprise of Carlotta and Jahil that go suddenly speechless.

Andy is updating Angel on his situation when Simone enters the RV. Andy apologizes to her and extends his hand to her, but she passes him by without making a sound. Andy leaves disappointed while Simone and Angels talk and make amends. Alex also talks to Noah and they seem to be in very good terms now.

Finally, while Star is getting her tattoo, she explains the tattoo artist (Casey Mills) the reason why she chose to have her mother´s name on it. Back at Maurice´s office he is about to make a call when Natalie walks in and at some point, she decides to seduce Maurice promising him to get him everything he desires with Midtown, if he wants to.

Please make sure to catch up with Starry Constellation Magazine recaps and don’t forget to watch Star every Wednesday at 9/8c on Fox. ¡Hasta la próxima!