This show tells the story of four middle-aged women who were in a girl band in their twenties but now live very ordinary lives. Dawn (Sara Bareilles) is married, has a cute son (destined to become a New York Lonely Boy, a real gem of a song featured in Episode 3) and works in her brother’s restaurant. Summer (Busy Phillips) is the supremely ditzy one, who married a guy from a boy band, and is now just a stay-at-home pop star who tries to make money off her brand. Gloria (Paula Pell) is a dentist and a divorcee (she and her wife were the first lesbian couple to divorce after fighting for the right to get married). And Wikie (Renee Elise Goldsberry) is the only one who’s still a star. She had the pipes and diva chops and appears to be an influencer on social media, always flying around in fabulous outfits to give performances around the world. She was the reason the band broke up in the first place as she wanted to pursue a solo career. But, things are not as they seem...
After one of their old songs gets sampled in a rap record, the ladies are inspired to cash in on that nostalgia and reunite as Girls5eva. At first it’s for a one-off performance, but they are in such desperate need of a change in their lives that they decide to see how they could actually spin this into a full-blown reunion. Also, if you’ve been paying attention, yes, their band name is Girls5eva because there were five women in the band, but one of them, Ashley (Ashley Park) died in a tragic infinity pool accident. Which means Park has the slightly thankless acting role of showing up only in flashbacks or grainy footage of the band’s old music videos. Since this show debuted on AAPI Heritage Month, that’s not a great boost for Asian representation in media but oh well (and this show is just crazy enough for that to potentially change in Season 2).
This is a show about nostalgia and the 90s and the general insanity of the MTV generation. We get snippets of the music videos and songs that these women released in their heyday and oh lord are they spectacularly terrible. I loved listening to them because the lyrics (which are mostly written by the show's creator, Meredith Scardino) were so fantastic. It reminded me of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, albeit with slightly less production value on the music side. But if you’ve ever enjoyed the fake songs on 30 Rock or Kimmy Schmidt, you’ll be delighted with what you get here, courtesy of Tina Fey’s composer husband, Jeff Richmond (both Fey and Richmond serve as Executive Producers on this show and Fey does pop up in a wackadoodle cameo at one point).
Girls5eva isn’t high art. But it’s four straight hours of a bunch of ladies being dumb and over-the-top and your brain can simply relax and enjoy itself. You will giggle, you may even guffaw, and at the end, you will have no regrets about whiling away an afternoon with this show. Isn’t that the best outcome you can hope for?
tour de farce. Good one.
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