The Other Black Girl has a lot of surprises in its original story. We have an explanation for its surprising ending, before Hulu’s adaptation.
*WARNING: Spoilers ahead for The Other Black Girl novel and likely the Hulu series* — Published in 2021 by author Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl became an instant bestseller when it hit bookstore shelves. Hulu produced a TV adaption of The Other Black Girl even before its release. The show will be available in a few short weeks.
The Other Black Girl plot and release date
Hulu will debut The Other Black Girl on September 13th, 2023.
The series, which stars Sinclair Daniel as Nella Rogers an editorial assistant for high-flying publisher Wagner Books (whose staff is all white, except Nella) tells the tale of Nella, who pushes regularly for more inclusivity.
Hazel May McCall is Ashleigh Murray, The Other Black Girl. Initially, Hazel presents herself as Nella’s friend and ally within the office.
But not all is what it appears to be. As Hazel’s star begins to rise within the company, Nella finds herself spiraling out of favor and at risk of losing both her job and sanity.
Hazel’s heel turn
Nella starts to understand that Hazel represents more than just a colleague who is trying to get ahead in the company.
She is aligned instead with an oppressive, sinister system that seeks to placate aspirational Black Women like Nella.
Hazel’s opposition to Nella is brought into the light when she convinces her colleague to criticize a racist caricature in the upcoming novel by Wager Books’ star author and biggest cash cow, Colin Franklin.
Upon calling out the racist stereotype portrayed in the character of Shatricia, a 19-year-old heroin addict and mother of five, Nella is quickly made a pariah within the office, while Hazel becomes Wagner’s golden child.
The Other Black Girl’s book ending explained
The reason for Hazel’s villainous turn in The Other Black Girl is that she is part of a secretive network of Black women who infiltrate corporate workplaces to ‘convert’ ordinary and aspirational Black women with the aim of making them more compliant within their majority-white workplaces.
When matters appear to reach boiling point, Hazel comes to Nella with a peace offering, a jar of Smooth’d Out hair grease.
The story then takes an even more horrifying turn, as the revelations slowly emerge that Hazel has been brainwashing her targets with the help of hair products all across the nation.
In the final act of the book, it’s revealed that in the 1980s, a white author named Diana Gordan attempted to pacify Kendra Rae, the only Black editor at Wagner Books at the time, after comments she made led to bad press surrounding her book.
Diana connected her lover, Richard Wagner – owner of Wagner Books, to an old friend named Imani and together, they began developing a chemical formula to help them make Black women such as Kendra Rae more submissive.
Over the decades, this led to an expansive network of ‘Lead Conditioners’ such as Hazel who look to convert aspirational Black women to their cause and make them less ‘threatening’ to their white colleagues.
After attempting to repel Hazel’s efforts to convert her, Nella is finally worn down and consents to being converted.
Rather than bringing down the system that oppresses her, Nella becomes ingrained in it by the ending of The Other Black Girl book which ends with her continuing the cycle as she sets her sights on ‘fixing’ a woman named Shani, who had been attempting to foil the Other Black Girls network alongside Nella’s story.
When The Other Black Girl Arrive with us on Hulu on September 13, don’t go expecting a happy ending.
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