“We got momentum/We’re climbin’ higher/We’ve got momentum/Yeah, we’re on fire.â€
When last we saw the divas of Girls5Eva, they were crashing the Jingle Ball stage to croon “4 Stars†to a sea of cell phone cameras. Twenty years prior, the pop group was booted off the setlist to make room for Enrique Iglesias, which at the time was a fair move since his was the mole that set afire a thousand loins. But now the time is right for a Girls5Eva comeback. Lil Stinker’s sampling of the ladies’ lone hit has put the now-foursome (R.I.P., Ashley, you angel of the infinity pool) back into the public consciousness, but it’s up to them to keep the heat going.
Through season one of creator Meredith Scardino’s delightful love letter to girl power, Dawn (Sara Bareilles), Wickie (Renée Elise Goldsberry), Summer (Busy Philipps), and Gloria (Paula Pell) struggled to figure out where they fit into the musical landscape now that they were middle-aged and disinclined (and contractually prohibited) to trot out their misogynistic early-aughts catalog. They also realized they were clinging to personas imposed on them by a handsy ’90s manager in a Jersey motel room and that to wow the masses with a new and improved Girls5Eva, they needed to do some evolving of their own.
All the songwriting sessions, trademarked meltdowns, and salad-making practice must have paid off because season two finds Girls5Eva eating cake from wine glasses at the offices of Property Records, the brainchild of one or both of the HGTV real-estate twins. Or maybe that third brother with the Hot Topic coif. In any case, Property’s talent scout Tate (Grey Henson) informs the crew that they’re expected to pump out a comeback opus in six weeks since the company wants to coordinate the album drop with the release of some fish-scented hammers.
As the long-single Wickie basks in the glow of her Raya app and Gloria basks in the musk of the Scott siblings’ salmon hammer, Summer worries about her recent influx of blessings. Girls5Eva has an album deal, her influencer daughter is untraumatized by news of the “Summer and Kev†split, and her bald spot has developed a healthy fuzz; these are the occasions when God sees fit to humble you with a skin tag or three. Dawn assures her blemish-free friend that her life is running more smoothly because she’s started taking control of it. It’s true. No longer will Summer abide an existence in which she’s overwhelmed by lettuce and untouched by a closeted crab-fanatic husband. She’s even begun to use her vocal fry as a manipulation tactic rather than a default sound! Progress!
Dawn, meanwhile, would very much like to turn the management of her kid’s dojo schedule over to Scott (Daniel Breaker), but her fellow karate-parent Cara (Heidi Gardner) seems inclined to ping only the matriarchs. OMG, “Mamacita,†Dawn has no time for your regressive gender politics! She’s got to pen an album in a month-and-a-half, and by my count, she’s only got two bops she hasn’t sold off to Stinker and his contemporaries. One of the ditties happens to be titled “Momentum,†which is a thing that will come to a screeching halt if Girls5Eva doesn’t impress the execs at the upcoming showcase. She’s got a lot on her plate, which is probably one of four tasteful platters from the Scott Living Dinnerware Set, and by God, is there anything these chiseled lookalikes don’t do?
At showcase time, the Girls5Eva gals push out their boobs and belt the club version of their new tune, but they still see audience eyeballs drifting toward their cell phone screens. When four sets of mammaries and a hot percussive groove can’t hold people’s interest, what is a pop group to do? A death drop, Gloria decides, which proves a great way to get on the “promo train†and a very bad way to treat one’s patella. She requires knee surgery, but with all the PR heat now wafting off the group like salmon from a hammer, she just doesn’t have time for the 12-week post-op convalescence. The procedure can wait ’til the album drops. Sure, Gloria’s workaholic tendencies have fouled up things before — primarily her marriage — and the compulsion to be ever-useful is something she’s absolutely gonna examine … in April. Until then, she’ll manage just fine on a cocktail of powerful narcotics. Plans like this are foolproof.
Wickie doesn’t need drugs, as she’s high on breaking the hearts of her celebrity Raya matches. Her first is Tim Meadows, to whom I referred in my notes as a “zaddy†before looking up the term and realizing that a person who has to Google-confirm the definition of “zaddy†probably oughtn’t to be using it. Whatever. The guy is a snack, and Wickie is wrong to stick him with her fish-tower bill. She is also needlessly mean to The Circle’s Joey Sasso, whose caffeinated Cameo bellows are worth every damn penny of his fee. Wickie is still smarting from her split with TikTok pranksters Cray and Ray, and I understand her need to regain a sense of romantic control but come on. If you need to dump a famous person on Raya, John Mayer is right there.
For now, the girls have a podcast to get to, and it happens to be recording atop the highest set of steps in all the five boroughs. Gloria, already numbed to the gods, pops three more Percocet before making her way up Hell’s staircase. Easy-peasy, this climb! But suddenly, her consciousness is flooded with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Or, more specifically, pink-eyed rabbits bounding through a magical land where “all joints are fine.†By the time the four women get in front of music anthropologist Nathan Reasel (James Monroe Iglehart), Gloria is in full Liam Gallagher mode, glowering through sunglasses, proclaiming her godhood, and sticking objects in her mouth that just don’t belong in there. Her friends realize it’s up to them to rescue the venerable Top Docs dentist who is currently rolling dice around her maw, and they abort the promotional tour. Wickie and Dawn are confident their songwriting and vocal pyrotechnics will be enough to win over the fans, and God has finally gifted Summer a benign growth. Everything’s comin’ up Girls5Eva! And it is also going pretty well for all the elementary school dads Cara finally CC’ed. I imagine that RBG pillow is getting some good use.
Power Vocals
• The chivalrous swains of Collab: “Of course I’ll wait ’til you’re ready, girl/But, like, how long though?â€
• Speaking of collabs, I think we need a real-life Wendt5Eva Yuletide team-up. I mean, the guy’s already worked with a girl group and played Santa Claus twice. Surely he’s up for it.
• Oh, Property Troubadours. Maybe you should’ve left the crooning to your brother.