Picking up another Andrew Rannells project that’s eluded me: I got a free promotional subscription for Peacock, so I’m checking out Girls5eva. As with Central Park, enough intrigues me about the show that I’m planning to watch the whole season, not just the episodes Rannells guest stars in. So far, I’m not convinced, but it has potential.
20 years ago, Girls5eva was a brief girl-group pop sensation. Since then, they’ve all gone their separate ways, but when a rapper samples one of their old songs in his new single, public interest in the group starts to rekindle. Having decided they want to capitalize on the moment and get back together, the four surviving members of the group plan their next move. Additionally, deflated diva Wickie has moved in with sensible/quasi-pushover Dawn and her family, where there are definite roommate growing pains.
I really like the premise of the show, which plays around with millennial nostalgia within the context of an original story and characters. And the main cast definitely caught my eye. Sara Bareilles does a nice job as Dawn, playing a solid straight man to the other three, who are all a lot of fun. Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica!!) is over-the-top diva Wickie, Busy Philipps is shallow but insecure Summer, and Paula Pell is divorced, no-longer-closeted dentist Gloria. (Their late fifth member—Ashley, played by Ashley Park—appears in cutaways to old footage of the group.)
But despite all those things drawing me in, the show itself isn’t quite firing on all cylinders yet. Some of the jokes are sharp and funny, while others feel too forced. A lot of the writing feels underlined, like the script really wants to make sure you get the joke, which can make the humor feel labored. Case in point: the song they use to try and stage their comeback, “Dream Girlfriend,” which is so full of Cool Girl stereotypes it starts to feel like a checklist rather than a satire.
I’m not ready to write it off, though. Episode 2 is supremely-early days for a sitcom, and there are some good bits here. I really enjoy Wickie’s oblivious takeover of Dawn’s apartment and her disdain for the family’s non-glamorous possessions. “Is that a hat from Boost Mobile?” she icily asks Dawn’s husband. I also laughed at Gloria’s admission during their strategizing session that she hasn’t written down any ideas, instead explaining, “I thought it might help me think if I wrote ‘THINK, ASSHOLE’ in really big letters.” Hopefully, the writing catches up to the cast as the season goes on.
Rannells plays Kev Hamlin, Summer’s husband. We learn in the pilot that theirs was a marriage of pop royalty back in the day, a union of Summer’s girl group and Kev’s boyband. These days, they’re living in different states, with Kev working as an entertainment reporter in Tampa. We haven’t seen much of him yet, but I’m assuming the “joke” here is that Kev is gay and Summer doesn’t have a clue. She recognizes that his affections are distant, in more than just the geographical sense, and overcompensates in front of the others because of it. “She bought a Cameo from her husband to make us think he’s FaceTiming?” Wickie observes. “Good lord.”
Like I said, not much from Rannells/Kev so far. In this episode, we just get the aforementioned Cameo and a quick cutaway of him filming for an entertainment story, so everything we’ve seen from him is Kev when he’s “on.” Not sure yet what he’s like when he’s off-camera. As usual, Rannells has good comic timing and I’m looking forward to seeing more of him, even if the material is a little lacking. Side note: why does Kev still have the exact same ludicrously-floppy hairstyle that he had 20 years ago? I completely buy him being vain and banking on the fame of his former glory days, but it seems like he’d have the 2021 equivalent of that haircut, not an outdated carbon copy.
First thoughts:
Recommend?
In General – Not yet. Rannells’s guest appearances are spread throughout the season, so by the time I get to the last one, I’ll hopefully have a better sense of whether it starts to gel more.
Andrew Rannells – Too early to say. He’s had maybe four lines so far.
Warnings
Language,
sexual references, drinking, and thematic elements (including references to
sexual harassment.)
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