‘Girls5eva’ Is All Grown Up and Ready For The Netflix Spotlight

Everybody has a Ticketmaster horror story, even the stars of the musical comedy series Girls5eva, which Netflix has picked up for its third season after Peacock unceremoniously pulled the plug on the music-driven comedy after just two seasons.

During a recent press day at the iconic Plaza Hotel in New York City, Busy Philipps told Decider that she was held in a Ticketmaster queue for two hours while trying to get tickets for the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, which resulted in the system crashing due to heavy traffic.

Paula Pell adds that she once purchased Hamilton tickets for an “astronomical” upcharge on Stubhub for her and a friend while it was playing in Los Angeles.

How do these horror stories relate to the popular series? In Girls5eva Season 3, which premieres on March 14, 2024, the revived girl group tries to hack the online ticketing system on their twisty journey to performing at a major performing arts venue.

“I like that Meredith Scardino [showrunner], Tina Fey [executive producer], and everybody can poke fun at these things that everybody deals with,” says Philipps about the specific storyline.

First premiering as one of the flagship series that launched the then-fledgling Peacock streaming service back in 2021, Girls5eva follows the fictional eponymous girl group from the 1990s — comprised of Wickie (Renee Elise Goldsberry), Dawn (Sara Bareilles), Summer (Philipps), and Gloria (Pell) — as they reunite in the present after a young rapper samples one of their songs. Scardino created the show, which is executive produced by Fey and her husband Jeff Richmond, the latter of whom also contributes original music.

The first two seasons of Girls5eva, which will also be added to the Netflix catalog, tackled issues like music ownership and the difficulties of finding talent representation. By the latest season, the girl group is more steady in their artistry and more in sync with each other than ever before with their sights set on going on tour. 

But that doesn’t mean they don’t face a few major challenges.

Scardino, an Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt alum, which is another series that Netflix rescued from NBCU, praises the streaming giant for picking up Girls5eva. “Netflix has been an amazing partner. They were wonderfully supportive of the show from the jump,” she shares. “I have emails from [Vice Presidents of Original Series at Netflix] Andy [Weil] and Tracey [Pakosta] loving the show when it first came out on Peacock. They’ve always loved it. I’m so happy to work with them.”

The series cast visibly perked up when recalling the show’s exciting renewal. “You know the term ‘shout’ from the Pentecostal church? That’s what I was doing when I got the news,” says stage and screen star Goldsberry.

Philipps, however, was in a broken seat on a flight from Los Angeles to New York when she got the news. “I got this email and these texts start coming through,” she shares. “I was like, ‘Isn’t this just life?’ You never know. It’s fantastic. I’m so grateful to be in this broken seat right now.”

In many ways, the television show’s new home at Netflix emulates the growth of the girl band. With enough notability established in its previous seasons, the show is moving forward seamlessly and refuses to dwell in the past, much like Gloria when demanding to be recognized as the queer icon she is and Summer when dedicating herself to discovering her own identity outside of her failed marriage and controlling father. 

Thus the show finds itself less reliant on using flashbacks to establish crucial plot points, though they are still present in the season to add context and pave the way for a few longrunning gags. “They are moving forward,” Scardino explains. “They don’t necessarily need to always be unpacking their past as they move forward now. Not every story feels like it lends itself to seeing a glimpse into the past, but plenty certainly do.”

Goldsberry finds herself pleasantly “surprised” by the way her character grows throughout the season. “I’m grateful for the diversity in the writers room. They knew how to write nuance… And I’m grateful that [Wickie] started with so much room to grow. It really speaks to how many seasons of the show we could have because she was born for a slow arc.”

Goldsberry praises the upcoming storyline in which Wickie’s parents are introduced, saying the character was “born in so much love and so much affirmation.” She says, “The fact that [Wickie’s] decided to make that the very thing that’s holding her back – which is something that I’ve probably done in a way in my own life – and we get to see her let go of this sense of entitlement, and then we want to give it back to her because we know that she needs to be that ambitious. She’s the fuel that keeps them going. It was constantly a surprise.”

Then there’s Bareilles, who is in many ways, the heart of the series. At the end of Season 2, Dawn discovers she’s pregnant and decides to still embark on the Girls5eva tour. Throughout this journey, Dawn’s pregnancy is never viewed as an obstacle to her pop star antics. “I feel like that’s a dimension that doesn’t often get teased out,” Bareilles says. “Women become pregnant, and then they are suddenly portrayed like that’s the only thing in the world happening to them. But life doesn’t stop around any of that, as we well know.”

The two-time Grammy winner adds, “We get to watch this woman care about her family and her health, but it’s just a part of what’s happening to her in her life, and the commitments and ambitions that she has.”

Bareilles jokes that she wouldn’t be dancing as hardcore as Dawn if she was pregnant, to which Philipps jumps in to say that she was doing Soul Cycle until three weeks before giving birth to her daughter Cricket: “That’s why I’m convinced she loves EDM. Like there is no reason why this child should be drawn to EDM except for my Soul Cycling, right?”

Returning to the topic of Girls5eva, Bareilles adds, “The only thing I didn’t like about it was the prosthetic. It wasn’t even horrifically heavy. It was just uncomfortable. It was sweaty and we also had to keep track of it because we don’t always shoot linear.”

The women of Girls5eva, from Scardino to Bareilles, clearly have a lot of affinity for the series and their characters. One can only hope that they have found a stable home at Netflix and that the show will get another encore in the form of Season 4. What can I say? We’d be down to watch these girls for 5eva.

Girls5eva Season 3 premieres March 14, 2024 on Netflix.