Starz has announced the first details for the upcoming second season of acclaimed anthology The Girlfriend Experience, which will be undergoing something of a makeover. Rather than focus on one on-going storyline like it did last season with Christine, season two of The Girlfriend Experience will follow two parallel stories over the course of its 14 episodes.
“It was always our intention to change the universe every season, but Amy and Lodge have cranked up the ambition, scope, and complexity of the show by creating two storylines even more provocative and confrontational than last year’s. I’m as excited as a Swedish person is allowed to get,” executive producer Steven Soderbergh said.
One story will take place in Washington, D.C. amid the madness of the 2018 mid-term elections, where the influence of dark money has a smothering influence on proceedings. Erica Myles (Anna Friel) is the finance director of a prominent Republican Super PAC, someone under intense pressure to perform the closer the election gets; the direction of the entire country could rest on her shoulders, so in order to get the results she desires, she contacts GFE provider Anna Greenwald (Louisa Krause) with the intention of blackmailing a high-powered fundraiser. However, the relationship between Erica and Anna quickly evolves from professional to sexual, as the two fall into a dynamic predicated on vulnerability, submission, and Erica’s gradual loss of control.
The other storyline, set to take place in New Mexico, follows Bria Jones (Carmen Ejogo), a GFE who discovers something disturbing about a regular client and subsequently relocates for her personal safety. Once in New Mexico, Bria forms eerily transactional relationships with the men she encounters all the while avoiding the ghosts from her past that continue to threaten her present.
There’s been no word as to whether the stories will intersect or if their connection will just be thematic. The Washington, D.C. story will be headed by co-creator Lodge Kerrigan, while the New Mexico side of this season will be from co-creator Amy Seimetz.
Season two of The Girlfriend Experience is set to premiere later this year on Starz. Additional casting will likely be announced at a later date.
Will you be watching The Girlfriend Experience season two? Do you like the changes to this season? How do you think both storylines will interact?
