I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a massive assumption. I’m convinced that every Black woman who was a fan of Sex and the City played Spot the Black Woman in each episode. And this game is exactly what it sounds like: an exhaustive never-ending game of Where’s Waldo for adults. By now we all know that SATC was a series that rarely, if ever , featured Black women. I can still count the moments in which Black women appeared in phantom roles. They were disposable, one-dimensional characters that disappeared as quickly as the appeared. These female actors were never awarded more than a few collective minutes on screen. I still vividly remember Carrie Bradshaw’s enthusiastic hot dog-loving African-American limo driver in season 5, episode 5. Her role lasted for under two minutes. Prior to that character, we were introduced to chef Adeena, a.k.a. The Angry Black Woman, who pulled Samantha Jones hair in a nightclub. There was also the annoyed neighbor who introduced new mom Miranda Hobbes to a trick that would finally quiet her wailing child. That neighbor told Miranda she needed more “mom friends” to which Miranda agreed. Ooh, she’ll be back! I thought. Yet she, like the rest of them, was given their walking papers. Of course playing Spot The Black Woman on a television series didn’t begin in 1998 when Sex and the City premiered on HBO. It also didn’t end with the show’s demise six years later. So in 2012, it was difficult to not play this game when Girls premiered on the same network. Though generations apart, both programs were pegged to speak to a young generation of professional independent women. But again: Where were the Black successful female leads characters? In 2013 we got a glimmer of hope with Mara Brock Akil’s Being Mary Jane on BET. Showrunner Brock Akil wasn’t new to this audience. After all, she was the creator and producer of UPN’s hit sitcom Girlfriends — an iconic show in its own right — and had credits to her name including Moesha, and The Game. Yet this primetime series was different. And judging from the record-breaking 4.4 million people who tuned in for the show’s debut, it was a timely page flip to a new chapter in television. Audiences were thirsty. They needed a scripted series in which a Black woman was given the opportunity to just be normal. For some the premise was snoozy, for others it was spot-on.