“Girls5eva” deserves to be heard. Sure, the rollicking comedy, from the minds of Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, creator Meredith Scardino and others, is funny. The music world (specifically, the teen pop machine) is terribly skewered. The song, led by Jeff Richmond, is smart and catchy.
But really, the essence of the show comes from its stars – Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps and Paula Pell – and the characters they play. These are women of a certain age who are rediscovering their voices and finally embracing their goals, after years of settling for something less.
SelectionThe Awards Circuit Podcast recently spoke with Philipps and Pell about the third season of “Girls5eva,” what the show meant to them and the specific message it resonates among the laughs. Listen below!
In “Girls5eva,” Bareilles is Daybreak, who gave up her goals of fame to support her family. Goldsberry’s character, Wickie, is the diva whose attempt at a solo career didn’t work out. Philipps Summer Season is the aspiring space influencer who belatedly realizes her marriage is a lie. Pell plays Gloria, who abandoned music to become a dentist. When one of her long-forgotten songs resurfaces as a standard hip-hop song, they are reunited.
It’s a bold series that mixes a “30 Rock”-level density of jokes with a deeper plot about what it’s like to follow a passion when you think the alternatives are gone.
“I think what Meredith Scardino and all of our writers and Tina Fey are always able to do — of course, on all the shows that Tina has done — are complicated jokes that are so funny and absurd in so many ways,” Filipe says. “And yet, it’s also very grounded and has a lot to say about what it’s like to be a woman at this time and at a certain age. And a girl trying to achieve her goals. A girl trying to come to her senses after the end of her long-term relationship and discovering at age 40 who she is. As someone who is also in her mid-40s and also divorced, I assume there’s a thing that happens when you hit middle age where you take inventory of how other people’s opinions have influenced you. And whether or not this is who you really are and what you really want to be.
Pell jokes that as she reached her 60s, she found a new freedom to not care too much about what others have to say. “These filters are falling off a little bit now,” she says. “I was probably more worried about what people think. And everything I mentioned and did in my life. I used to be totally codependent on people-pleasing, and now I really am not. And I’m still a very varied person, but I just tell the reality.
The theme of Season 3 revolves around the four “Girls5eva” characters who continue on a similar journey of self-discovery. It’s a deal for the celebrities to have gotten a third season, after “Girls5eva” ran for 2 seasons on Peacock. When a third season wasn’t possible there, the producers got together and got a pull from Netflix, which now has all three seasons on the streamer.
Meanwhile, also in this episode, the filmmakers behind the Investigation Discovery docu-series “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, focus on the response to their expose on the dangers of being a child actor. in one of the many linear networks aimed at young people.
Selection’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, produced by Michael Schneider, is your one-stop shop for energetic conversations about the best in film and television. Every week, the “Premium Circuit” offers interviews with great experts and creatives in film and TV; discussions and debates about awards races and business headlines; and a little more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you download podcasts. New episodes published weekly.