In season three of Girls5eva, the former early-2000s pop stars looking to reclaim the fame of their glory days go on a real journey in more than one way. First, the show is moving from Peacock, where it aired its first two seasons, to Netflix (fingers crossed this means a bigger audience for this deserving show). Second, this latest season is full of moments of real personal growth for Dawn, Gloria, Summer, and Wickie — from learning “Who is myself?” to realizing that not wanting to cheat on your normie boyfriend doesn’t mean he’s a witch but that you are in love.
And finally, after getting the group back together and recording an album during the first two seasons, season three sees the band literally head out on the road for the Returnity World Tour. Below, find a handy guide to everything you need to know about their time crisscrossing this country: what goes down at each tour stop, the people they meet along the way, and yes, of course, the music. Gather all the Big Pussy Energy you can, Girls5eva is in tour mode.
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East Exchange Roadhouse in Fort Worth, Texas
Tour Notes: The Returnity World Tour kicks off in Fort Worth — FoWo if you’re nasty — and Girls5eva really has tapped into a hole in the market with their Fort Worth Anthem. They could easily stay there and make this a residency instead of a world tour: Dawn could watch all the new episodes of The Crown while in a bath, Gloria could continue her quest to hook up with all 178 types of women, and they could all simply enjoy how comfortable it is.
Wickie Roy won’t stand for it. She decides to take a big swing to shake them all out of their complacency by putting a down payment on a date at Radio City Music Hall in six months time on November 23. Yes, it’s Thanksgiving, but who cares? They need to get out on the road and hone their show so that they’re ready for NYC. If they can’t sell tickets or need to cancel, they’ll be on the hook for $570,000.
Notable Locals: All the sad dads staying at the FoWo Marriott Divorced Dad Suitelets, especially the one who asked if it was the 28th when it was actually the 5th — that man needs so much help. The “Pre-Friends Courteney Cox type” woman with whom Gloria has a “standard wham bam thank you, ma’am — did you make it to your meeting, ma’am” hook up.
Overheard in Town: “I can be Dawn. Chris Pratt played Mario — there’s no rules when it’s Italians.” — Summer on taking the Dawn role in the group when Dawn’s too busy following Prince Andrew’s stuffed-animal story line (don’t worry, no one is happy about it) on The Crown.
Spotted: One Wickie Roy pretending it’s her saying “door open” that opens the automatic doors at her hotel.
Best Performance: A 40-minute, mostly improvisational version of “Tap Into Your (Fort) Worth,” which includes a lengthy section made up of Fort Worth street names. When it looks like they might be losing the crowd, it simply veers into a “Fuck Dallas” chant.
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The Music Hole in Bomont, somewhere near the Ozarks
Tour Notes: Maybe Lil Stinker was right — maybe Girls5eva should’ve stayed in Fort Worth as long as possible. They were aware that Bomont is the town from Footloose, but I don’t think they were fully prepared for what the place has in store for them, and I’m not even talking about the “boob desert” Gloria finds herself in. The ladies are forced to change their set from hits like “B.P.E.” to more “appropriate” songs, like an entire set of John Mellencamp covers, lest they be kicked out of this venue and the next 20 on their tour, which all happen to be owned by ultraconservative state senator Chuck Dennis (more on him below). Dawn, Gloria, and Summer won’t stand for a man telling them what to do, and Wickie won’t stand for a man introducing her third in the Girls5eva lineup, and so Dawn goes on a tirade against Chuck (she’s very bad at it), and the rest of the group triumphantly run out on stage to perform their “Big Pussy Energy” anthem. Chuck calls for a “footloose” and cancels all of their upcoming shows. Still, it felt good to put that guy in his place.
Notable Locals: State senator Chuck Dennis (John Early) not only owns all the bars in town (and everywhere nearby), he is also a “fetal citizen advocate” who is legally obligated to attend all prenatal appointments; his qualifications are remembering his own conception, and he enjoys stalking — or, I’m sorry, checking up on his patients “to make sure they’re being good baby hosts.” Gray Holland (Thomas Doherty) is the most famous musician on the planet — in fact, the only person in the world who doesn’t know who he is is Gloria, and that’s exactly who he runs into while eating at Macaroni Rascals while incognito as a truck driver named Mad Dog.
Overheard in Town: “One day, there will be a biopic and, yes, of course I will play myself from birth — goo-goo ga-ga — to death — I think there’s a bomb on the yacht!” — Wickie Roy pitching her biopic in her very artsy, very important tour doc.
Spotted: A whole bunch of “It’s time for hospice” signs at the Girls5eva performance; in all fairness, Gloria did warn her fans never to write down her nickname, Ho Spice.
Best Performance: “Is There a Me?” (“Or is me just guys?”) Summer, a “relationship chameleon,” asks in this Adele-esque ballad as she burns all of her clothes in the Bomont Divorced Dad Suitelets parking lot, wonders what The Witcher is actually about and decides to figure out “Who is myself?”
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The Wiggens’ House in Clarksville, Maryland
Tour Notes: It’s not an official tour stop, but it is full of drama and fireworks. The group stops here in Wickie’s hometown to regroup and finally learn the truth about Wickie Roy née Lesley Wiggens: She comes from a loving, stable home and wonderful, supportive parents. She made up all the stories about her “hardscrabble” life to seem more interesting. But she insists she never actually lied: “My family is very good at Scrabble! It’s hard!”
Wickie’s parents have always helped her get out of her messes, so after some pushing from Dawn, she asks if they will help pay the fee to get out of Radio City Music Hall since their tour is a wash. They agree, but when Dawn sees how much it breaks Wickie’s spirit, she instead asks Mr. and Mrs. Wiggens to give Wickie what she’s always wanted: Mean, unsupportive parents who refuse to coddle their daughter. Wickie’s never been so happy, and her newfound enthusiasm means the tour is back on!
Notable Locals: Wickie’s sweet dad (Ron Canada), who is very into his boat, the soon-to-be named David Harbor; Wickie’s mom (Adriane Lenox), a lovely lawyer, willing to “take a lucrative case defending Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost” in order to help Girls5eva pay off Radio City Music Hall; Plantain Conchita, a famous dressage horse Wickie’s aunt used to ride.
Overheard in Town: “When I was living in L.A., I took a job doing background work on The Goldbergs rather than crying to Mommy and Daddy. Ever walk through a Jeff Garlin fart cloud, Dawn? Well, I would walk through a billion Garlin farts before I asked them for money again!” — I think you can guess.
Spotted: A glowing white light coming out of Summer’s ass thanks to the tooth whitening gummies she started selling in an effort to become a She-E-O. Why yes, it is very much an MLM scam.
Best Performance: Dawn’s untitled horny Christmas song about Mrs. Claus and a sexy elf (she’s very hormonal). Coincidentally, it would be the perfect song for the soundtrack to Wickie’s failed Hallmark Christmas movie Mrs. Claus and the Hunky Elf: Portrait of Erotica, which, fun fact, was denounced by the pope.
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Taffy England’s Birthday Party in Orlando, Florida
Tour Notes: Six weeks after Maryland, with their tour back on track, Girls5eva is on a private jet headed to Taffy England’s (Cat Cohen) birthday party. She’s superrich, married to a big-time sugar daddy, and kind of awful — but it’s okay because a lot of musicians perform for people way worse than Taffy, and they really need the $30,000 fee for performing at her “My Posters Come to Life”–themed bash. It brings up a lot of nostalgia-related issues for everyone, but none so much as Dawn, who is once again reminded of the harmful lyrics in many of their old songs. Eventually, she reminds herself that they’ve moved on from that and it’s nice to feel like you did in your youth every once in a while.
Notable Locals: All-Star WNBA player Rebecca Lobo, who is very wise! Pixie Jones (Ingrid Michaelson), a Jewel-esque singer whose career was ruined when she went on Summer and Kev’s variety show and Summer took it upon herself to scat during Pixie’s big song.
Overheard in Town: “Never have to meet his parents caused they died during Nixon / Died during Nixon, yeah!” — lyrics from the Girls5eva hit ode to Sugar Daddies, “Sweet ’N Low Daddy”
Spotted: Footage from Dawn’s most “regrettable swing” from her youth, a dance-instruction video called “This Is Rap Dance.” It’s as bad as it sounds!
Best Performance: “Home Alone Doorknob” What else is Wickie to do when she spots her old flame Torque but sing this sultry ode to feeling exactly like that part in Home Alone when Kevin heats up that doorknob until it’s glowing red hot? Thankfully, Wickie realizes she is very much in love with the Lunch Lord, and her Home Alone doorknob for Torque cools just as fast as it was heated.
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Parma Music Cellar in Cleveland, Ohio
Tour Notes: When Gloria runs into her trucker friend Mad Dog in yet another Macaroni Rascals, her bandmates finally clue her in to who she’s been hanging out with all this time, and now she’s embarrassed — and definitely regrets giving Gray Holland her autograph on an “Is removing all your teeth for you?” dental pamphlet. Still, something wonderful happens: Looking to get back to the times when he played music in intimate venues and was given more than eight seconds to take a bathroom break each day, Gray shows up backstage at the Girls5eva show and asks if he can perform with them.
It’s a great show! When the Sweater Nation inevitably arrives, Girls5eva gets Gray out of there and to their hotel room, though not without a few paparazzi shots first. Gray has the time of his life going to the bathroom and making music from anything, a thing he actually invented, did you know? But the night sours when realizes the ladies are angling to have him play with them at Radio City and are obsessed with fame.
Gloria knows how to make it up to him: Gray wants to disappear, to be a regular person again, and so Gloria, using all of her knowledge from murder podcasts, helps Gray fake his own death. It’s great for Gray Holland, living his best, fox-toothed life in Canada, but terrible for Girls5eva: Thanks to those pap shots, rumors have spread that Dawn is pregnant with Gray’s baby and he was so distracted by her, it’s why he accidentally crashed his plane. Okay, actually the exact things people are saying is “Sweater Nation vows revenge on cradle-robbing Macaroni Rascal,” and that Dawn is “a geezer preggo” and a “slag yank” and a “shit-haired cankle monster.” But you get the picture — Girls5eva is being boycotted.
Notable Locals: The “screaming teens, moms, gays, gays ignoring the moms, moms noticing and getting insecure” hanging around Gray Holland’s hotel.
Overheard in Town: “When Gallagher died, I posted, I hope heaven has a tarp. It got me on the front page of AOL News.” — Wickie explaining why she goes so hard to post a pic whenever a celebrity dies, although never quite as hard as Jon Hamm. (He must be bribing the coroner.)
Spotted: A truly grisly scene in Percy’s bulge region when he puts on Wickie’s leather pants to “act cool.” As Wickie points out, “Your bulges, they don’t add up!”
Best Performance: “Inside My Sweater” by Gray Holland; He’s just a sensitive boy who wants to cry inside his sweater with you, okay?
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Radio City Music Hall in New York, New York
Tour Notes: It’s the big day! It’s also a disaster. The girls are fighting over whom to blame for the Gray Holland debacle, and they go their separate ways to figure out how to either pay off their Radio City Music Hall deposit or sell out their tickets. In a surprise twist, it’s Summer who saves the day once she realizes that selling tickets is just like selling her tooth gummies — a scam! She uses money Percy made chewing for a record producer after his chewing was made popular from Gray Holland’s final song and builds a bot army to buy the tickets. Sure, no actual human has bought tickets, but they sell out Radio City Music Hall and at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, Girls5Eva plays the concert of their lives … to mostly just their family.
Notable Locals: “A famous” named Richard Kind. Yep, the Richard Kind “from everything.” Dawn runs into Kind pretending to work on the Euphoria set so he can enjoy their craft services, and he gives Dawn a life lesson about never getting too big-time. He’s engineered his career in order to “strike the perfect balance between constantly working and never getting bugged in a deli.” Dawn shouldn’t be striving for the big time but the medium time: “Never above No. 5 on the call sheet of life: That’s happiness.” It’s a very handy run-in! Also making a special appearance: Little Lee-Lee, a.k.a. Dawn’s daughter Lesley, named after her Auntie Wickie, whom she promises to love and take care of, “even if [she] become[s] … a teacher.”
Overheard in Town: “My God, you’re gonna Kate Bush!” — Dawn, when Girls5eva sees that Wickie’s solo song “Yesternights” was used in the finale of The Crown. Just when they agreed that maybe this mid-level of fame might be the perfect level of fame for them, they have the opportunity to go big time.
Spotted: A sneak peek at Wickie’s documentary Wickie Roy: A Legend in the Making: Avatar 4 (that last bit is to “maximize searches”), because she can sell it for millions, just like Billie Eilish did! She can “wear a sweatshirt and have a brother!”
Best Performance: Sorry, it’s a tie! The big NYC Girls5eva concert is just too good to pick one. There’s “Get It Off Your Chest,” a sweet song in which all of the women confess embarrassing things like “Every year when my son’s school sends out the class list with parents’ names, the first thing I do is Google them to see what they paid for their apartments” (Dawn) and “I don’t know what to do with batteries so I just throw them in the river” (Gloria). But there’s also “The Medium Time,” the big concert’s closer, inspired by that famous Richard Kind, and it will legitimately make you cry. It’s all about keeping things simple, taking your time, and enjoying where you are and who you’re with. It’s heartwarming and something all four of the women seem content with as the Returnity World Tour comes to an end. But then Nance Trace and a chance to have a song on Sony’s female Garfield movie come along — and who could resist Sony’s female Garfield movie? Probably not even Richard Kind.
