Abby and Barbara went into Lady Parts thinking that this was the type of arrangement they needed all along. They would get to create and oversee content meant for women like themselves without male oversight and without having to kowtow to those who don’t share their perspective. By targeting an audience that can sometimes be ignored in the online rat race, Abby and Barbara would duck some heavy hitters while enjoying the benefits of laser-focused marketing and content creation. However, starting a website in 2017 is difficult as it is and the two have been trying to play catch up for the majority of Lady Parts’s existence, which has led them to the point they’re at now.
On the season finale of Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Abby and Barbara head to therapy in a last ditch effort to mend their professional relationship. Some tension is to be expected, given the stakes of what they’re trying to build together and the extraneous personal difficulties Abby is dealing with, but Abby’s issues of control, perfectionism, and narcissism have blown things up to the point where she and Barbara might not be friends anymore, let alone business partners. Her inability to communicate effectively and trust in Barbara’s ability, despite Barbara’s greater experience in the online world and the positive response to their female-only advertising campaign, is the main issue between them, with the dynamic between them becoming so much like her relationship with Jake that she ends up calling Barbara “Jake” in the heat of the moment. For Lady Parts to become something great, Abby is going to have to become self-aware about the cyclical dysfunction in her close relationships, figure out that perfection is not feasible with a living, breathing organism that is a website, and learn to let go of the reins for once in her life.
Elsewhere on Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Jo makes an impulsive decision that will have major implications for both her career and relationship with Albert, while Phoebe’s idea of renting her house out for extra money forces her to confront her past and Delia grapples with the possibility that she might be pregnant.
The season finale of Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce airs tonight at 10:00 on Bravo. The series has already been renewed for a fifth and final season, which should premiere in early 2018.
Will Abby accidentally calling Barbara “Jake” be the breakthrough they needed in order to repair their professional relationship? Could Jo back away from her relationship with Albert after his disastrous first meeting with her daughter? Who from Phoebe’s past could turn up at this particularly vulnerable moment?
