“We take what we started to build in the first season on every single level and we just kick it up to a new level,” Philipps told Parade.com ahead of the Season 2 premiere. The Cougar Town alum had previously teased that the next season would be full of “more songs and more hijinks.” Speaking to Parade.com, Pell said, “I think all the songs will continue to surprise people. They just keep coming up with great songs for us,” adding, “There’s just some like great physical surprises this season, and great plot, sort of storylines that are not expected. I think some episodes there’s some really, really crazy, funny, big comedy that I think might not be fully expected, but it’s a delight.” Continue reading to find out what Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps and Paula Pell had to say about their Girls5eva characters, plus everything else we know about Season 2…
When does Season 2 of Girls5eva premiere?
Season 2 debuts on Thursday, May 5—appropriate since five has “always been” their favorite number!
Who is in the Girls5eva cast?
The show’s titular girl group is made up of a talented group of actresses and singers. Grammy Award winner Bareilles plays Dawn, while Goldsberry, whose role in Hamilton earned her a Tony Award, portrays Wickie; Philipps stars as Summer and Pell as Gloria. While other specifics about the Season 2 cast have yet to be announced, the first season also featured Tina Fey as Dolly Parton, Emily in Paris’ Ashley Park as Ashley (the fifth Girls5eva member, who died swimming off the edge of an infinity pool), Andrew Rannells as Kev Hamlin, Vanessa Williams as Nance Trace, Jonathan Hadary as Larry Plumb, Daniel Breaker as Dawn’s husband Scott, Dean Winters as Nick and SNL’s Bowen Yang as Zander. Philipps has promised fans will also see some new faces in the future. “There are some incredible guest stars already just in the first three episodes,” she told Parade.com. “I’ve heard some names of some people who are gonna be coming up, guest starring and it’s pretty exciting.” Season 2 has a slew of guest stars, including TODAY’s HodaKotb, Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott,Amber Ruffin, TimMeadows, Grey Henson, SNL’s Heidi Gardner, James Monroe Iglehart, John Lutz, Judy Gold, Sex and the City alum Mario Cantone, Pat Battle, Piter Marek, Amy Sedaris and Neil Flynn.
How to watch Girls5eva
The comedy, created by Meredith Scardino, streams exclusively on Peacock.
Is there a trailer for Season 2 of Girls5eva?
Appropriate for the start of Season 2, the new season’s official trailer opens with a newscaster declaring that the girl group is “hoping to become two-hit wonders” before showing the gang in full-on “album mode.” Before that, Peacock shared a first look clip at SXSW in March 2022. In the sneak peek, Gloria is told she needs a knee replacement moments before she and her fellow Girls5eva members learn that the PR team wants to “start the promo train now” so the world will be begging for their album. “They’re not gonna want me to promote their label post-op from a Hannibal Lecter board!” Gloria says.
What is Girls5eva about?
The Peacock original series is about a one-hit-wonder girl group from the ’90s who reunite to give their pop star dreams another shot. The performers set their sights on Jingle Ball. “It’s not just a concert,” Goldsberry’s character declared. “It is a coronation. It is how we will know that we have truly arrived.”
What will happen in Season 2 of Girls5eva?
(Warning: Some Girls5eva Season 2 spoilers ahead!) Discussing Season 2 in a November 2021 interview with Parade.com, Philipps revealed, “The ladies, when we left them they like had stormed the stage at Jingle Ball, so there’s definitely like the aftermath of that, and more songs and more hijinks.” There will also be more costumes for the women of Girls5eva! “I have to say that the wardrobe, the costumes this year that the girls get into are just off the charts. Like there’s some wild things happening,” Philipps shared. Scardino, showrunner and executive producer, has teased that the new season will see Dawn, Wickie, Gloria and Summer “enter ‘Album Mode’” as they set out to make “their first studio album on their own terms.” The show’s creator previously told TVLine that she did not want the girl group to “become hugely famous,” explaining, “They say they want to be famous and all that s**t, but it’s not really about fame. It’s about fulfillment and trying to build something together and the way they’re kind of activating each other’s lives. They were all, in their own way, kind of frozen in amber after the band went away and they all had to pick up the pieces of their lives. I just like underdogs, so I didn’t want them to become hugely famous. I also didn’t think that was realistic, that they would become hugely famous, these four women without a lot of representation and a lot of resources. So in Season 2, I would like to retain some of that scrappy ‘us trying to go up against this big, giant machine as underdogs’ [energy].”
Will all Season 2 episodes of Girls5eva drop at once?
The series will return with three episodes on May 5 followed by weekly episodes on Thursdays.
Prior to the premiere of Season 2, Parade.com spoke with the cast about their Girls5eva characters…
How theircharacters and the group have grown since Season 1
Gloria
Pell: “I think Gloria is just finally, all bets are off. She’s taking her gloves off and she’s like, I want this. I’m not gonna [have] guilt about wanting it. I want my ex-wife back. I want my career to be this again. And I am happily gay. I’m not gonna be afraid of that side of my life, hiding it. And it’s just sort of hitting a little too hard at the beginning of the season and she hits that speed bump with her dance move and hurts herself. But I think it’s all about now. It’s like courage and just being productive. And let’s go, go, go, go, go.”
Summer
Philipps: “Yeah and for Summer, I think she had this big realization and made a huge decision to split up with Kev last season. And so now this season for her it’s really personally about like finding your own voice and figuring out who she is on her own. And it’s not necessarily about like finding another boyfriend or a man to be there with her and I think she really leans on her group, on her girls and also like finding her place in the group too because I think they’re all finding their places in the group apart from what was manufactured for them back in the day.”
Wickie
Goldsberry: “Well, first of all, they actually have been given a shot so, I’ll speak for Wickie, she can calm down just a little bit. Just the littlest bit because they actually have a record deal. And they’re showing up to the studio every day. They have a place to go to work. She has a place to live. She has somebody to pressure her to do the actual work at this stage, which is write the music and yeah and so she gets to I think grow from her proximity to these women, specifically Dawn that she lives with. She’s forced to make a decision about what’s more important, if our status at the record label compromises our care for our friend. What are we going to do? It’s album mode and human mode, and she’s got to balance them and it’s an interesting struggle.”
Dawn:
Bareilles: “And for Dawn, I think actually… Wickie’s ambition has really rubbed off on her in a really cool way where she’s getting a chance to admit that she wants something… Dawn is getting a chance to like admit that she really wants to be an artist and say it out loud and not apologize for it. And I think that really comes from being close to Wickie Roy, who like is so unapologetically bold and fearless. And so Dawn is struggling with trying to juggle her personal life with her professional life, and it’s complicated.”
Some challenges the Girls5eva members will face in Season 2
Dawn
Bareilles: “That’s a huge one [struggling to balance making a comeback and motherhood]. It’s the third episode, I think right, how many mothers are out there that it’s like ‘Well, my childcare is out the window today. I’m bringing my kid to work.’ Dawn’s got her son with her and she’s in some of the greatest hair of the whole season in that episode alone. The design team in episode three was chef’s frickin kiss. Definitely the toggling between home life, motherhood, being a good wife, a present partner, and this seed of ambition for Dawn is a huge part of her conflict through this season.”
Wickie
Goldsberry: “For Wickie, I love going back and kind of revealing some vulnerability. That’s kind of always so interesting on Wickie and whether it’s her foot or just talking about like moments in her life. I mean as we move through the season where you know that kind of still stay with her where she didn’t win and she kind of is carrying the pain of it. I think it’s interesting for her to kind of admit those things and figure out. I think there’s some unraveling like, ‘How could I grow up and be a little bit better and she’s doing a bit of unraveling and it’s funny, but also I think it’s kind of inspirational.”
Gloria
Pell: “I think one of Gloria’s other things besides the physical challenges is that she has to really face whether she’s making the correct move to make everything lead to her getting back with her ex-wife. I think it is deeply challenged by her loved ones in the show. It’s challenged by herself, her own brain of like, ‘Am I trying so hard for something that I might not even want or need right now? I might need to go explore this new world that I’ve just opened up. Do I need to go back to this safety of my old relationship that didn’t work the first time?’ So that’s her biggest challenge.”
Summer
Philipps: “I think for Summer, it sort of is like a continuation of the extricating herself from her marriage. And her parents, we get to meet Summer’s parents… My parents are played by Amy Sedaris and Neil Flynn and it was an absolute joy to have them on set together and to have them on set separately. Just to have them on set. But Summer, yeah continues to try to just figure out who she is and what it all means. And also like if she really has a place in the group outside of what Larry had given her, her job [that] Larry, their old manager, had given her, which was just being like the girl that says the sexy femin nasty phrases at the end, you know?” This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity Next, 40 Songs That Scream Female Empowerment From Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Dolly Parton & More
