P-Valley

*Elarica Johnson and Parker Sawyers star as Autumn Night and Andre Watkins on the hit STARZ series “P-Valley.” Season two premieres tomorrow, ...

“But they’re still the same people that you know, in that kind of relationship that we met the first season. “The potential relationship or not with Andre changed because the conversation changed, and the positions in power kind of change,” said Johnson added. Autumn Night blew into Chucalissa with secrets and the “it” factor in season one.

'P-Valley' actors Shannon Thornton and J. Alphonse Nicholson are navigating tough territory – down low love and domestic violence.

We get to see someone who has a little bit of all of us in him.” “For Lil Murda, you see him fight with all the complex emotions that come with being a closeted Black man and rapper in this society,” Nicholson said. “This season, you really get to see why she stays.

In P-Valley season 2, the Pynk recruits new dancers as the club struggles to survive the pandemic. Watch an exclusive clip from episode one here.

"I am trying my best to keep the f*cking water out the boat, Mercedes," she says frankly. Between Hailey and Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan) fighting for the throne and the newbies shaking up the club's locker room, there's no telling how the Pynk will stand to survive another crisis. "You gon' up and have auditions after I told you explicitly not to — really b*tch?," Mercedes questions Hailey in the clip, to which she says: "I'm trying to make the best decisions for the club."

Still, Uncle Clifford showed up for her in a big way in the P-Valley Season 1 finale, when Autumn's ex, Montavius, popped up at the club looking for her. After ...

“What’s going to come out of that is, you know, there’s some people who are more passive-aggressive when they’re fighting, and we’re going to see that sneakiness,” she continued. “So Uncle Clifford is going to learn that [about Hailey], and Hailey has always been this way,” she added. Corbin Kyle continues to fight for the casino as a power struggle unfolds between Uncle Clifford and Autumn. Under the deal, she and Uncle Clifford are now both co-owners of the club. Still, Uncle Clifford showed up for her in a big way in the P-Valley Season 1 finale, when Autumn’s ex, Montavius, popped up at the club looking for her. After a fight broke out between him and Autumn, Mercedes, and Uncle Clifford, gunshots went off, seemingly leading to Montavius’ death.

Uncle Clifford is quietly romanced by local rapper and trap star Lil Murda, who frequents the Pynk for his image. Two other characters, dancers Gidget and ...

In season 2, we can expect to see the growth of old characters as well the entrance of new ones. On and off the pole, she’s turning The Pynk upside down.” The air to Roulette’s fire, Whisper becomes a full-blown tornado when she hits the pole.” There’s this character, Woddy, who is Lil’ Murda’s manager and works in the funeral home. The cast is ready to get back to work after a nationwide pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Montavious ends up on the wrong side of a shotgun barrel, allowing Hailey to move on from her sordid past once and for all. At the end of the season, we find out that Autumn adopted her stage name from her late daughter, who passed in a flood trying to escape her ex, Montavious. Autumn Night, whose real name is Hailey Colton, ends up being confronted by Montavious at the Pynk. She had allegedly stolen a great deal of money before leaving him. Her reign as queen of the club is coming to an end – that is, until her mother, Pastor Patrice, steals her hard-earned savings AND studio space and conspires to open a church instead. She confirms the money is in the bank, yet Montavious doesn’t relent and nearly kills her before Mercedes and Uncle Clifford step in. Autumn falls for a married real-estate broker, Andre, who is looking to buy the Pynk from Uncle Clifford. Uncle Clifford is quietly romanced by local rapper and trap star Lil Murda, who frequents the Pynk for his image. While the witty, gender fluid club owner, Uncle Clifford (Nico Annan) found her to be a “bootiful” fit for the Pynk, residing HBIC Mercedes (Brandee Evans) was not so impressed. Millions of viewers across the country are gearing up to spend their weekend down in the valley where the girls get naked!

Megan Thee Stallion has contributed a track to Season 2 of P-Valley and appeared at the launch party for the new season which premieres June 3.

It's one of the best shows on television right now and a smash hit for Starz and we can't wait to see where Season 2 is heading. Having Megan Thee Stallion join is a wonderful move for the show and is also great for the rest of us as well, because who doesn't love a new Megan Thee Stallion song? Getting to return for a second season is amazing and this just makes it all the sweeter.

The 27-year-old Grammy winner previously hinted at a guest-starring gig as she visited the Atlanta set of the Starz series in April.

It's a miracle! Lady in red! Miracle Watts - who makes her debut this season as Big Bone - showcased her bourgeoning baby bump in a green cut-out gown and bedazzled stilettos Back in April, Stallion (born Pete) hinted at a guest-starring gig as she visited the Atlanta set and posed in a gold bikini for a snap with, who else, Nicco and Brandee. Back in April, Stallion hinted at a guest-starring gig as she visited the Atlanta set and posed in a gold bikini for a snap with, who else, Nicco (L) and Brandee (R) Brandee - who stars as tough veteran stripper Mercedes Woodbine - certainly stood out in a red gown featuring gathered ruffles around the neck, a thigh-high slit, and long train.

At the centre of P-Valley is Mercedes Woodbine, (Brandee Evans) a tough veteran stripper planning to leave ...

I think that when you think about being a small business and I think about The Pynk and Uncle Clifford, just like your neighborhood ice-cream shop or brewery. I would say give P-Valley a chance because what you think is the strip club culture, is not at all. Annan is looking forward to people seeing the second season of the show. "I would say that this is a show for people who feel like they have been misunderstood. "So here, when we're talking about strip clubs and sex workers, it's a business built on intimacy and gathering. And so, coming back into Season 2, it feels like a continuation of the journey. "I feel because this pandemic is such a pivotal moment in history, how could we not be vocal about what and how these people made it through this time? It celebrates LGBTQIA+ characters and features some of the most poetic and repeatable dialogue. You get to see more of her with her daughter, more of what happens outside of The Pynk. So it's a wonderful journey that you get to see." In an age where there's so much TV to watch, I pushed this aside and never gave it a chance. The series showcases diversity and gives voices to minorities. Things I had seen 100 times before on The Sopranos or Underbelly.

Fireworks shoot out of a dancer's heels in the first episode of the return of this fabulous drama about a strip club in America's 'dirty south'

There is a glut of prestige television, but this is a standout that is well worth tracking down. There is an easy confidence to P-Valley that makes it an utter pleasure to watch. The dancers share their meagre and illicit “strip-thru” profits equally, but debate whether that is fair, given that Mercedes is the top draw. It is a drama about a small town and its residents, and therefore it is a series about work. It dug its nails into power and politics, and refused to choose the easiest path to the finish line. I suspect that P-Valley (Starzplay) did not find an enormous audience in the UK for its first season, being tucked away on a subscription channel within a subscription service.

Starz's hit show P-Valley is back for a second season, and show creator Katori Hall explains why it was important for her to tackle the pandemic head on.

I don’t want people to feel that they have to travel to a theater in order to be in the living room with my characters. The idea that everyone’s story is important is a driving force in my work. It’s about the gathering of people in the same room in the same space. It’s a reflection of people and the world. Is there anyone you consider a mentor, in the world of television or theater? When you’re writing, it’s just you and a computer and you’re wrestling the words to the ground. There’s already limited people in the pipeline, so you just have to create the pipeline and you have to take chances on both sides. And it had a lot to do with the fact that they had some experience with being objectified as women in their lives. The thing about mask wearing, you know the literal mask to protect yourself, and there’s [the proverbial mask the characters take off] over the course of the season, which I think evokes a kind of healing between characters and their relationships and the healing that has to happen within yourself. They hadn’t thought about the historical misrepresentation of women in media across the board or have a definition of what the female gaze was. It felt like the perfect place to explore and see someone who works in a club that’s in the midst of this current moment in history.Yeah, strip clubs are kind of like the hotbed of our culture. Also the strip club is a live performance, and I wanted to explore the impact that a virus would have on a business that was based on gathering.

The Chicago Defender spoke with the cast of P-Valley and the show's writer and creator, Katori Hall what fans can expect in season two.

A surprise hit with audiences, P-Valley debuted in 2020 with record numbers and explores the culture of strip clubs and the complex experiences of sex workers. The Chicago Defender spoke with the cast of P-Valley and the show’s writer and creator, Katori Hall what fans can expect in season two.

During this week's 'TV's Top 5' podcast, hosts Lesley Goldberg and Daniel Fienberg also preview the new and notable shows arriving in June.

“I knew I had something to say about this universal experience from the lens of black women down in the dirty delta who are out there stripping and trying to make their way out,” says Hall, who also reveals how the pandemic altered the five-season plan she originally had for P-Valley. This week, Dan and I are joined (for the second time!) by the great Katori Hall, creator and showrunner of Starz drama P-Valley, which was one of the best-reviewed TV shows when it debuted in 2020. That and Westworld and another HBO limited series that will set up the premium cable network for Emmys 2023.

Based on Hall's 2015 play about a Southern strip club, her Starz series treats dancers as complex human beings, not set dressing.

I think that the truthfulness and brutal honesty of the story is able to combat a stereotypical idea of what Black womanhood is. I’m so aware of the history of hyper-sexualization in American culture and in the media when it comes to Black women. It was kind of my responsibility, I think, as a woman, as a Black woman with a platform, with this gift of storytelling, to be able to put forth an extremely nuanced articulation of their experience. There’s also a long history of presenting Black women in a hypersexualized way that you must have had to contend with. I know that every human being holds in them an immense amount of power and an immense amount of vulnerability. I went on weekends to see a show, and what I was really seeing was art. But the women did, I think because they had their own experiences of being objectified. It was just part of the social fabric of being a Black girl growing up in the American South. What I’ve found in those spaces is that even though the women are economically chained in certain ways in their real lives, when they’re onstage, they look like Wonder Woman. I saw women who could hold their own weight, and other dancers, upside down with one hand. Set at a strip club called The Pynk in the fictional town of Chucalissa, Miss., “P-Valley,” which returned to Starz for a second season on Friday, takes the desires, struggles and rich interior lives of those dancers as its focus, without judgment. Going to strip clubs was just a regular thing that I did on the weekends growing up. Why did you choose to set your play in a strip club?

Roxana Hadadi is a TV critic who also writes about film and pop culture, with the closed captions on and motion smoothing off. Photo: Kyle Kaplan/Starz.

But P-Valley is trying to do so much via splintered subplots, it’s missing the consistency and cohesion that drove the first season, as if the trinity tried to perform without Mercedes or Lil Murda got onstage without his signature grills. One doesn’t need to divulge all those details, though, to criticize the season’s clunky tonal shifts as it tries to balance the misery and horror of the early days of COVID-19 with the glittering excitement of a viral Instagram Live broadcast, or depictions of attempted rape with the tease of a special musical guest. There are still gasp-worthy highlights, like an assassination scene that aligns our gaze with the victim’s and a sex scene that lingers on rapturous facial expressions, imbuing the “opposites attract” adage with sizzling eroticism. After the events of Murda Night, Pynk security guard Diamond (Tyler Lepley) is off the job, Keyshawn is firmly back with abusive baby daddy Derrick (Jordan M. Cox), and Uncle Clifford is on the outs with both Keyshawn and former lover Lil Murda. Still lurking is the threat of the Promised Land Casino and Resort, whose representative, Andre (Parker Sawyers), is not quite ready to leave Chucalissa behind. It introduced characters whose motivations were complex and desires ravenous; it served them with storylines about the intimacy and claustrophobia of small towns and cinematography that emphasized the strength and sensuality of women’s bodies as they danced. It rejected the kind of false equivalencies (between labor and morality, or goodness and godliness) that swirl around women who choose to take off their clothes for money.

"P-Valley" is a drama from Starz, set in the fictional strip club The Pynk in the Mississippi Delta. Over 3 million people read Morning Brew morning brew ...

In season one, Keyshawn (Shannon Thornton), whose stripper name is Miss Mississippi, teamed up with local rapper Lil Murder to propel them both to social media stardom by filming videos pretending they're a couple. Throughout season one, Uncle Clifford tried to get the town — some of whom were put through college by working at his club — to pass a referendum that will disallow gambling and make the property worthless to investors. But her mother, Patrice Woodbine (Harriett D. Foy) put an end to that when she stole her stash to open up a church for herself. In season one, she worked alongside the other dancers but frequently stole the show by working her way to the top of the pole and doing gravity-defying tricks. Clifford inherited the club from his grandmother (Loretta Devine). The strip club drama, "P-Valley," was a breakout hit when it premiered on Starz nearly two years ago.

Cast, Creators, Dancers and members of The Pynk Posse showed out at the 'P-Valley' Season 2 premiere and afterparty in Los Angeles.

Katori Hall talks to ET about the success of the Starz series and what's in store for season 2.

Maybe she hasn’t. I can’t say.” No matter what, she makes clear that the rapper is “always welcome.” And so, she is the ultimate success story of a woman who danced and used the stage as her stepping stone.” “We really wanted to embrace horror and the tropes of horror in order to really articulate how people were haunted on an individual level, but also this is a community that is haunted,” Hall continues. It also didn’t hurt that “other people got more confidence in me telling the story,” she quips. “What’s interesting about African American culture is that spirit is so prevalent and we address it and our ancestors are always with us,” Hall says. From the moment the series returns, fans will see how everybody in Chucalissa has learned to fight “ tooth and talon” to survive during these unprecedented times, even as death and danger lurk around every corner.

P-Valley stars Brandee Evans, Nicco Annan, Elarica Johnson, Shannon Thornton, and Tyler Lepley. See pictures of the cast hanging out off screen here.

Despite how they may butt heads (and even come to blows) on the show, the cast of "P-Valley" is actually really close in real life: just check their Instagram pages. The cast has been equally excited to get back to the show, too, as they've all shared their own BTS snaps, reels, and TikToks ahead of the show's return. "P-Valley" finally makes its grand return for season two on June 3.