The girls are back in town.
Like all of the craziest rock n roll bands, Girls5eva turned up at SXSW to debut their second season.
Peacock unveiled a first-look clip at the second season of the Meredith Scardino-created comedy, which is set to launch on May 5 (5/5 for Girls5eva, get it?), and the girls joked it up in Austin, Texas.
The series stars Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps as a 90s girl group sensation reuniting for a second run at fame. The first season saw a few ups and downs as they struggled to get back to their place on the A-list.
The second season sees Bareilles’ Dawn, Elise Goldsberry’s Wickie, Pell’s Gloria and Philipps’ Summer enter ‘album mode’ and embark on making their first studio album on their own terms.
Showrunner and executive producer Meredith Scardino joked that the second season answers the “simple” question of what would happen if Girls5eva was renewed for a second season.
In a panel session, moderated by guest star Andrew Rannells, who plays Kev, the former husband of Busy Philipps’ Summer, Scardino said that season two picks up about a month after the group stormed Jingle Ball. The girls get a record deal with a celebrity brand extension of the Property Brothers. “I love keeping them underdogs and scrappy,” she said.
In a funny exchange during the panel, it emerged that Elise Goldsberry’s Wickie sang a Bruce Springsteen musical during an episode of the second season. However, the four found out that Scardino had in fact cut the song. “I overpack these episodes,” she said.
Similarly, Pell had a moment of life imitating art in the second season. She had her own knee issues, which saw them incorporate into the second with a broken knee for her character Gloria. This led to some “sexy cane work”, according to Pell.
Philipps joked that she wanted the band to do a mall tour, in real life, but they’d have to “resurrect malls first”. She added that while most actors want to be rock stars, something she calls “so lame”, she gets to do it legitimately on the show.
Peacock will debut three episodes at launch and it will then be released weekly. The first season of the show had all eight episodes dropped in one go.
Filmed in New York, Girls5eva, which launched on the streamer in May 2021, is produced by Universal Television and is exec produced by Scardino, Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, Jeff Richmond, who is in charge of the criminally catchy songs, David Miner, and Eric Gurian.
