TV can be a funny thing sometimes. Stressful dramas can be nominated for comedy awards, and limited series can suddenly be transformed into multi-season epics.
The latest show to potentially get the latter treatment is The Girlfriend, Amazon Prime Video’s recent adaptation of Michelle Frances’ novel of the same name. While the TV version was initially billed as a six-part limited series, the early chatter around it has left many wondering if there will be more.
So, what’s the verdict? At the time of this writing, Prime Video has yet to renew The Girlfriend for a sophomore season… but that doesn’t mean that it’s entirely impossible. The show just dropped a few weeks ago, and streaming services often wait a little while to see how a title performs before making a decision in one way or another.
While Prime Video doesn’t usually flaunt their actual viewership data (at least compared to the massive amounts of “Minutes Viewed” on other streaming services like Netflix), it does seem like The Girlfriend has found some success on their platform. It is currently the #3 most-watched show in their Top 10, behind The Terminal List: Dark Wolf and the summer obsession that was The Summer I Turned Pretty. Granted, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that Season 2 will be greenlit, but it’s at least encouraging.
What’s next?
Either way, the question is… where does Season 2 even go from here? Season 1 of The Girlfriend followed the ever-escalating rivalry between Cherry (Olivia Cooke) and her boyfriend’s overbearing mother, Laura (Robin Wright). As the two of them grew more and more at odds over Laura’s son, Daniel (Laurie Davidson), death and deception seemed to follow.
**Spoilers for The Girlfriend season 1**
By the end of The Girlfriend‘s sixth and final (for now) episode, a confrontation between Cherry (now engaged to Daniel) and Laura seems to build to a breaking point. Both women fall into a pool, leading Daniel to jump in and hold Laura down in an effort to protect his fiance, accidentally killing his mom in the process.
The show then flashes forward to a year later, with Cherry and Daniel now married and expecting a baby. Daniel discovers a video message on Laura’s phone… more specifically, a warning from Cherry’s mom, Tracey (Karen Henthorn). She advises her to be careful around Cherry because “she’ll get rid of you somehow,” adding an even darker undertone to Laura’s death. While so much of The Girlfriend‘s first season hinged on Laura and Cherry’s dynamic, it sounds like there is still narrative potential after this wallop of a cliffhanger ending.
“We decided – and this wasn’t our original thing – that we’d love to do a second season if Amazon wanted to,” executive producer Jonathan Cavendish recently told TechRadar. “Season 2 could really go at the same story told in a different way.”
What could a second season of The Girlfriend look like? At this point, it feels like anything is possible. In a way, the narrative feels reminisce of Netflix’s You, which kept finding ways to put Joe Goldberg in murderous situations even after Season 1’s original story had ended. And who knows? Wright could always return as Laura for a future flashback or dream sequence.
(featured image: Prime Video)
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