Good news, Pynk Posse: two months after concluding its second season, Katori Hall’s strip club drama “P-Valley” has been renewed by Starz. The premium cable network has renewed its most-watched U.S. series for a third season, per The Hollywood Reporter.
An adaptation of Hall’s play “Pussy Valley,” the TV series follows the lives of the employees working at The Pynk, a strip club located in the fictional city of Chucalissa, Mississippi.
“P-Valley” stars Brandee Evans (“B-Boy Blues”) as Mercedes Woodbine, The Pynk’s headliner who wants to open her own dance gym; Nicco Annan (“This Is Us”) as Uncle Clifford Sayles, the club’s non-binary owner and proprietor trying to rescue The Pynk out of dire financial straits; and Shannon Thornton (“FBI”) as Keyshawn “Miss Mississippi” Harris, a dancer and influencer who is experiencing domestic abuse.
“With its complex, dynamic, and beautifully flawed characters, this show is a love letter to marginalized communities in the American South who rarely see themselves reflected on screen, and it brings me immense joy to know that it has been embraced by folx worldwide,” said Hall, who created, showruns, and exec produces “P-Valley”. She emphasized, “We wouldn’t be getting back up on that pony, without our fiercely devoted Pynk Posse. Y’all are our fire.”
Kathryn Busby, Starz president of original programming, added, “’P-Valley’ continues to keep viewers on the edge of their seats as it captures the nuances of the Mississippi Delta with an unprecedented level of humanity and artistry. This layered drama gets beyond the glitz through authentic and complex characters that have captured the hearts of critics and audiences alike.”
Busby’s praise is perhaps best exemplified by Season 2’s “Jackson” episode, which aired exactly one month after Roe v. Wade was overturned. The July 24 episode sees Mercedes guiding her pregnant teen daughter Terricka (Azaria Carter) through all the options available to her, the two embarking on a road trip for a consultation at a women’s clinic at the state capital. “While never explicitly named in the show, the obvious inspiration of the clinic was ‘The Pink House’ or Jackson Women’s Health Organization, whose real-life legal battles waged with the state of Mississippi set the stage for the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Hall had said.
Fully women-directed, “P-Valley’s” 10-episode sophomore season averaged nearly 10.3 million viewers per episode via linear TV, VOD, and streaming combined – an impressive 23 percent increase from its debut season, which was also entirely women-directed.
A decorated playwright, Hall’s other works include “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” a stage production about the iconic performer that Hall wrote and produced, and “The Hot Wing King,” which follows a couple and their friends as they prepare to compete in the annual Hot Wang Festival. The latter earned Hall the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
