I decided to rectify a huge blind spot and come back to my gender promise by finally watching Girls5Eva, a show that premiered in 2021. Part of the problem with the show is that
it premiered on Peacock, and, three years ago, most people didn’t even know Peacock existed, so it struggled to find an audience. But people who found it loved it and it built enough of a fanbase to earn a second season in 2022. But even Peacock gave up on it after the second season, but Netflix saw something special in the show and picked it up for the third season, which just dropped in March.
It’s clear to see what Netflix sees in Girls5Eva, as the show is a banger of a good time, one of those utterly delightful shows that installs a perma-grin on your face. It’s not hard to see why. The marketing keeps touting Tina Fey’s connection to the show, as its executive producer, but, in this case, it doesn’t at all feel like window dressing. Everything about Girls5Eva has a classic Tina Fey feel about it, including and especially its pacing and tone, both extremely reminiscent of Fey’s seminal series 30 Rock, which ran for 7 seasons on NBC, from 2006-2012.
While Fey’s influence and fingerprints (and friends) are everywhere on Girls5Eva, the series was actually created by Meredith Scardino, whose most significant credits are as a writer for Late Show with David Letterman and over a thousand episodes of The Colbert Report. The combination of a veteran late-night writer merging with a television legend makes for a show with some of the best writing in a comedy I’ve seen since, well, 30 Rock (not counting Veep, which is in its own galaxy).
Truly, if you loved the whip-smart, fast-paced, mic drop one-liners of 30 Rock and the political and pop culture-skewing perspective of a late-night writer, Girls5Eva will be a tonic you will want to savor, but you’ll have trouble resisting the temptation to binge, as the show keeps getting funnier and funnier. The show’s premiere episode was even nominated for an Emmy for its writing, even though nobody had heard of or seen the show, the writing is THAT good.
But I’m totally burying the lede here.
While the writing is definitely enough to make you watch Girls5Eva, it’s not what keeps you around. The premise of the show is the story of four middle-aged women who were members of a one-hit wonder pop band in the ‘90s reuniting to try to make it big again, only to find more than a few obstacles in the way. With that premise, the show’s success hinges on the ability to find four actresses who not only can be funny, but who can sing. I mean LEGIT sing.
And find them they did.
To give you an idea of the resumes of the four stars of Girls5Eva:
Paula Pell plays Gloria, the insecure recent divorcee who came out of the closet late in life. Pell is a force of nature, and you’d never know that she has made her living as a writer and not an actress. Pell is mainly known for having been a writer for Saturday Night Live for 25 years, having won an Emmy and six WGA Awards along the way. She is by far the unlikeliest and least famous member of Girls5Eva, but is just as strong as the other three.
Busy Phillips, the only one in the main cast without an Emmy, Grammy or Tony, plays Summer, the ditzy one who co-hosts a Christian reality show with her cluelessly closeted husband (played by Andrew Rannells, another Grammy winner). Phillips may not have as many awards as the rest of the cast, but she has more credits than you can shake a stick at, the most notable being the seminal teen series Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000) and Dawson’s Creek (2001-2003). Besides being known the most in my house as being BFF Michelle Williams’s (whom she met on Dawson’s Creek) perma-date to the Oscars, Phillips might also be known for her regular roles in ER, Cougar Town and Vice Principals, and her short-lived late night show, Busy Tonight, in addition to dozens of television shows and movies. And yes, she can sing. Busy is so, so funny in this role of Summer, she nearly steals every scene she’s in. And the scenes she does with Rannells is comedy gold, I just cannot get enough of it.
Sara Bareilles is the cast member of Girls5Eva who fits the show like a glove. A legit pop star with two massive hits that you are sure to recognize (“Love Song” and “Brave”—look them up, you’ve heard them, I promise), she also starred on Broadway in Waitress, a show she also wrote the music and lyrics for (winning a Tony for the show’s score). Oh yeah, she also has two Grammys. I know she starred on Broadway, but who knew Bareilles was such a great actress. Once you watch Girls5Eva, you will. Her performance is a constant surprise, the glue that holds it all together.
Finally, even though it is hard for any one performer to stand out in this group, that’s exactly what Renée Elise Goldsberry does. Funnily enough, I recognized her from a role where she didn’t sing (The Good Wife), but most people now will instantly connect her with her Tony and Grammy Award-winning role in Hamilton as a member of the original Broadway cast. That show set the course for Goldsberry to be a star and she’s grabbed the chance with her role in Girls5Eva as Wickie, the self-centered, grandiose, overly melodramatic and even more ambitious self-proclaimed star of the group. Perceiving herself as Beyonce to the rest of the group’s Destiny’s Child, Wickie does everything she can to be the star she believes herself to be, but ends up coming back to Girls5Eva when the real world doesn’t pan out the way her dreams did. But Wickie never once stops believing in her own greatness, and Goldsberry is a comic genius in how she plays it just over-the-top enough to make us still like her, even though she’s completely ridiculous.
There is so much that is ridiculous about Girls5Eva (I can’t even start with Andrew Rannell’s hair), but that’s exactly what makes it so charming, delightful and a salve for the soul. While I am normally drawn to darker shows with more serious themes, occasionally I need something light, fluffy and feel-good. And, with Girls5Eva, I have found it, with enough of a taste of social and political commentary and focus on women’s issues to capitalize on their post-Barbie moment. I hope Netflix takes this show to the heights and finds this show the audience it so deserves. Don’t wait as long as I did to find it.