By Jae-Ha Kim
Amazon.com
February 24, 2009
The sixth season of “Girlfriends” continues the tumultuous storylines from the end of the previous year. The episodes focus on how complicated the relationships are not only between the women and the men in their lives, but also with each other.
There is a lot of drama in this sitcom this season: Lynn (Persia White) falls for another woman, Toni (Jill Marie Jones) becomes embroiled in a messy child custody case, Maya (Golden Brooks) reunites with her ex-husband, and Joan (Tracee Ellis Ross) contemplates shutting down her failing restaurant to return to her career as an attorney.
The end of the season sees the departure of one character and will set up the premise for a spinoff series called “The Game,” starring Tia Mowry (“Sister, Sister”) as Joan’s med student cousin. All 21 episodes of Girlfriends–which originally aired during the 2005-2006 television season–are included on this three-disc DVD set.
Executive produced by Kelsey Grammer (“Frasier”), the series moves at a quick pace and shows off the chemistry shared between the four leading women. Even as their characters are bickering, their genuine fondness for each other comes through. Ross in particular shows range and is as adept at playing the concerned mother hen as she is a coquette dating a much older man.
But the most poignant episodes revolve around Toni and her husband Todd. After the birth of their daughter Morgan, they struggle as new parents trying to keep their marriage intact. The show does a nice job of depicting a mom who loves her child, but doesn’t immediately feel the bond that a mother is supposed to have for her baby. And it depicts how fear of the unknown can ravage a relationship.
In the first couple years, “Girlfriends” was a lighter show; the show’s creative team took a risk by adding more drama (and melodrama) to the series. But, it’s a risk that works well here.
