History Series / Girlfriends

[[redirect:Series/Girlfriends2000]]

[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girlfriends_series.png]]
[[caption-width-right:330:L-R: Toni, Maya, Joan, Lynn.]]
-->''"My girlfriends/''
-->''there through thick and thin''
-->''My girlfriends/''
-->''there for anything''
-->''My girlfriends..."''
---> '''- Series Theme Song'''

One of the longest-running sitcoms with a predominantly African American cast, ''Girlfriends'' aired on Creator/{{UPN}} (2000–06) and then Creator/TheCW (2006–08). The show centered around a group of women friends in Los Angeles: Joan Clayton (Creator/TraceeEllisRoss), Maya Wilkes (Creator/GoldenBrooks), Lynn Searcy (Creator/PersiaWhite), and Toni Childs (Creator/JillMarieJones). Jones left after the sixth season.

The series ran for eight seasons until it was cancelled in early 2008, partly because of the writer's strike that year. Executive produced by, of all people, Creator/KelseyGrammer.

Not to be confused with the [[Film/{{Girlfriends}} 1978 film]] of the same title, the 2018 Creator/{{ITV}} drama series, or the manga ''Manga/GirlFriends''.

The series shares a universe with ''Series/{{Moesha}}'' and its spin-off ''Series/TheParkers'', and later had its own spin-off, ''Series/{{The Game|2006}}''. [[MorePopularSpinoff The spinoff was a success, to say the least]].
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!!Examples
* ADegreeInUseless: Lynn has five degrees but can never manage to hold down a job.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Toni and Todd in the third season, which [[spoiler: results in a wedding at the end of the third season]].
* BirdsOfAFeather: William and Joan, as friends. [[spoiler: Part of the reason why William starts to pursue Joan near the end of season 4 is because of how alike they are. They date in Season 5]].
* BlackAndNerdy: William fits this. He loves comic books and other geeky pursuits.
* BlackRepublican: William is a Republican, and it occasionally leaves the women wondering just why he is one if he's black. He’s uptight and nerdy, fitting the stereotype.
* ButNotTooBlack: Subverted with the main cast, which has a range of skin tones. Dealt with InUniverse, with a episode about Toni (who has the darkest skin tone within the group) rejecting a date because she refuses to date dark-skinned black men. Toni's justification is that she faced a lot of colorism growing up and doesn’t want her future children to be subject to the same hurtful comments that she dealt with. Also dealt with Lynn, who was raised by a white family and only started exploring her blackness when she became an adult. When Lynn gets a record deal, her label flat out tells her they don’t know how to market her indie music because she neither looks nor “sounds” black enough.
* BreakTheHaughty: Toni is [[spoiler: dumped by Greg (after he finds out she cheated on him with Clay), and after that she loses her job, and then Joan stops being her friend. After a particularly cruel revenge scheme by Greg,]] Toni starts spiraling out of control, having a FreakOut in a clothing boutique. Maya and Lynn then retrieve her, and they go to a church service where Toni decides to become a Christian and [[spoiler: she and Joan make up.]]
* BrilliantButLazy: Lynn is well educated and intelligent, but has no direction in life and doesn’t work or have a place of her own.
* CatchPhrase: Maya's "Oh hellllllll no" OncePerEpisode.
* CensorBox: Used on the girls and background characters when they visit a nude beach, with a few shots using ToplessnessFromTheBack.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the early season, the show included Joan breaking the fourth wall to comment on the action, complete with {{Imagine Spot}}s.
* ExtremeLibido: Sean, Joan's steady boyfriend in season 1, is a recovering sex addict.
* FriendsWithBenefits: Lynn and William start sleeping together as friends during the time they're roommates. Joan freaks out about this changing their dynamic, but they wave off her concerns. This does eventually lead to some complications and leads them [[FourthDateMarriage briefly eloping]], but they end up divorcing just as quickly and decide they BetterAsFriends without the benefits.
* FourGirlEnsemble: Joan is the Leader/ TeamMom, Toni is TheHeart, Maya is TheLancer, and Lynn is TheDitz.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Joan is Melancholic (goal-oriented but neurotic), Toni is Choleric (rude and prissy, but also a leader in her own right), Maya is Sanguine (uncouth but sociable) and Lynn is Phlegmatic (kind and non-judgemental, but a slacker).
* TheFriendsWhoNeverHang: Joan, Maya and Lynn all get significant one on one time with male friend William throughout the series, but Toni very rarely interacts with William outside of a group. Later, in Season 7 when Monica permanently joins the group (after several guest appearances over several seasons), both Joan and Lynn take several episodes to bury the bad blood between themselves and Monica, leading to quite a few one-on-one interactions between Monica and Joan/Lynn. That did not happen with Maya, despite hating Monica as much as the other two.
* FullNameBasis: Toni Childs always refers to herself as Toni Childs.
* GagPenis: One of the shows {{Running Gag}}s is jokes about [[GagPenis William's huge member]], fitting the BlackIsBiggerInBed stereotype. Lynn even calls him "Big Willy". But also according to Lynn, he actually averts the BiggerIsBetterInBed trope, as she found him a mediocre lay.
-->'''Lynn:''' Just because a man has a 747 doesn't mean he knows how to ''land'' it.
* GoodBadGirl: Lynn, who isn't shy about sharing the fact that she's had a lot of sex. She's a lot less judgemental in regards to sex and mistakes and usually helps the other women open their minds.
* HappilyAdopted: Lynn, a biracial woman, is adopted by a white family, but feels little angst about it.
* HartmanHips: A ''male'' example; Joan dates Marcus and things are going well, until she finds a girdle in his room. She thinks he's cheating but then he reveals the girdle is for ''him'', and he uses it to hide his large hips.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Joan and Toni [[spoiler:until the end of season 6]]
* HomosexualReproduction: William is the biological father of his sister's girlfriend's baby, having donated his sperm to them. He refers to the child as his "nephew-son''.
* InsecureLoveInterest: Joan becomes one when she starts dating William in season 5, and finds it hard to have measure up to William's previous lover Lynn, who is a SexGoddess. Lynn manages to calm down Joan by telling her William's actually pretty mediocre in bed, which somehow cheers her up but leaves William quite upset.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Toni, who is incredibly self-centered at times. Joan has her moments as well.
* JerkassBall: Every other arc had one of the girls suddenly acting extremely selfish and overbearing, such as Lynn selling bootleg copies of Maya's novel.
* LeftHanging: ''Girlfriends'' was abruptly canceled in 2008, leaving the storyline unfinished.
* LongRunner: Ran for 8 seasons from 2000 to early 2008.
* LowerClassLout: Maya has shades of this, and Toni certainly thinks of her like one. The other women are educated and/or having high-paying careers, which in comparison makes Maya feel like she's "ghetto" as she lives in a working-class neighborhood (the same one ''Series/{{Moesha}}'' lives in, in fact) and married her high-school sweetheart and already has a child.
* NeverMyFault: Toni blamed Joan for breaking her and Greg up because she inadvertently told Greg that Toni was planning to break up with him. Never mind that Toni was the one who cheated on Greg and caught an STI and nearly passed it to Greg.
* NewJobAsThePlotDemands: Since StatusQuoIsGod, Lynn is never able to hold any job and keeps changing them or becoming unemployed again, despite having over 5 degrees.
* NWordPrivileges: Tanya, Lynn's white sister, thinks she has this because she's a fan of Black culture, especially compare to uptight Joan and no-biracial Lynn. She does not.
--> '''Lynn:''' You've gone too far this time! You're not Black! Stop trying to be Black!\\
'''Tanya:''' Oh, ain't this a trip. All of a sudden you're the authority on what's black? You-- two years ago you were a biracial grunge girl, and a couple years before that, you were just some preppy white girl.\\
'''Lynn:''' That doesn't matter, because when you use that word, only one of us gets hurt. And there is pain behind it that you will never know!
* OfficeRomance: William had a romantic relationship with his office partner, Sharon, much to the disgust of Joan who loathes her.
* TheOneGuy: William is the only regular male main character, and the only man that hangs with the girlfriends.
* OneOfTheGirls: William is the only male friend that the group hangs out with, he's made it clear that he would only be attracted to them in the ''right'' circumstances. [[spoiler:He and Lynn actually start being FriendsWithBenefits in season two before they both end it due to it feeling weird.]]
%%* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: Had one for ''Series/TheGame2006'' in season 6.
* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy
** Charles Swedelson, Joan's and William's white supervisor, tends to use "hip-hop" and "urban" euphemisms towards Joan and William to appear more laid back and sociable.
** Lynn's white adoptive sister is this, to the point where she criticizes Black women like Lynn and Joan for not being Black enough. She also thinks she has NWordPrivileges. She does not.
* PrettyFreeloaders: Lynn, who in the pilot episode gets kicked out of Toni's place, and has been a squatter at one time or another in Joan's house, Joan's yard, Maya's spare room, William's house and William's yard.
* PutOnABus: Toni after the end of season 6, [[spoiler:she leaves town after a major rift in her friendship with Joan and to be closer to her ex-husband whom she shares custody of her daughter with]].
** PutOnABusToHell: The circumstances that she leaves under certainly makes it come off as this. [[spoiler: Toni, who had always wanted to marry rich and lead a life of leisure, ended up getting embroiled in a nasty divorce and loses primary custody of her daughter so she follows her ex-husband to a new city in order to remain close to her daughter. Interestingly, an episode discusses that while Joan may not be on good terms with Toni anymore, Maya and Lynn are still Toni's friends and share no problems with her. [[WhatTheHellHero They also call Joan out on trying to badmouth Toni to the rest of the group and trying to turn them against her after Toni leaves]].]]
* RecycledInSpace: The show was initially ''Series/SexAndTheCity'' except with black women, but the show quickly grew out of this towards the end of season one and focused more on CharacterDevelopment.
* RequiredSpinoffCrossover: Niecy (Creator/SharJackson) from ''Moesha'' shows up in season 1 as a patron at Davis's restaurant, and in the backdoor pilot for ''Series/TheGame2006'', Melanie and Malik are present.
* RunawayBride: In this case, [[spoiler: runaway groom with Darnell running back to Maya, and getting back together at the end of season 5]].
* RunningGag:
** Toni [[AccidentalMisnaming regularly mispronounces]] Maya's son Jabari's name. Sometimes she even thinks other people get it wrong while assuming her wrong name is the correct one.
** The "Lynn Spin", Lynn's [[ComicSutra never elaborated on sex technique]]e that makes her into a SexGoddess.
** Toni constantly makes quips about Todd's height.
* SassyBlackWoman: All of the Girlfriends to various extents, but more so with Maya and Toni.
* SexinessScore: In "All in a Panic", when Lynn is talking about her previous sex life with William, Lynn says he was actually surprisingly [[LousyLoversAreLosers mediocre in bed]], rating him a "4 out of 10 and that's rounding up". William gets very upset when he learns and even attempts to argue with Lynn to give him a better score.
* ShoutOut:
** There was an episode when William was learning to hold a baby with a practice doll. At one point, he gave the doll to Maya, who left it on the patio... [[Series/{{Seinfeld}} and a dingo ate it]].
** When planning a bachelor party, [[spoiler: for William when he was going to marry Yvonne]] Joan says that Timothy Murphy sent regrets, as he is prisoner [[Literature/LesMiserables 024601]].
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Mostly the focus for Joan and Toni’s storylines, although Toni would add “rich” to her wishlist.
* SpinOff: ''Series/{{The Game|2006}}'', focusing on Joan's first cousin Melanie and the world of pro football. ''Girlfriends'' also has a connection with ''Moesha'' with Dorian's birth mother Barbara being Maya's sister-in-law.
* StalkerWithACrush: Stan and Maya engage in an emotional affair, one Maya ends once [[spoiler: Stan kisses her (badly),]] killing any type of attraction she had to him. Maya gets Lynn's help in breaking it off with Stan, but [[spoiler: then Stan starts hanging around ''Darnell'' as a friend and threatens to tell Darnell all about their affair.]]
* STDImmunity: Averted when Toni [[spoiler: cheats on Greg with a doctor.]]
* TeamMom: Joan, who feels the need to take care of everyone.
* TheThingThatWouldNotLeave: Lynn crashed on Joan's couch and wouldn't leave for 8 years. She later also stayed with Toni, before getting a place in Maya's mom's garage.
* AThreesomeIsHot: When Toni asks for Lynn's help with her wedding night, Lynn immediately assumes she mans a threesome and gets excited at the prospect and is disappointed to learn Toni just wants her advice.
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Later spun off ''Series/{{The Game|2006}}'' ([[MorePopularSpinoff which was a success, to say the least]]), and the show also shares a universe with ''Series/{{Moesha}}'' and ''Series/TheParkers''.

* FourGirlEnsemble: Joan is the Leader/ TeamMom, Toni is TheChick, Maya is TheLancer, and Lynn is TheDitz.

Later spun off ''Series/{{The Game|2006}}'', and the show also shares a universe with ''Series/{{Moesha}}'' and ''Series/TheParkers''.

* PoisonousFriend: Toni Childs to Joan, but most of the main four have had shades of being this to each other

Later spun off ''Series/TheGame2006'', and the show also shares a universe with ''Series/{{Moesha}}'' and ''Series/TheParkers''.

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: Had one for ''Series/TheGame2006'' in season 6.

* PutOnABus: Toni after the end of season 6, [[spoiler:she leaves town after a major rift in her friendship with Joan and to be closer to her ex husband whom she shares custody of her daughter with]].

* SexinessScore: In "All in a Panic", when Lynn is talking about her previous sex life with William, Lynn says he was actually surprisingly mediocre in bed, rating him a "4 out of 10 and that's rounding up". William gets very upset when he learns and even attempts to argue with Lynn to give him a better score.

* AThreesomeIsHot: When Toni asks for Lynn's help with her wedding night, Lynn immediately assumes she mans a threesome and gets excited at prospect and is disappointed to learn Toni just wants her advice.

* MixedAncestry: Lynn is half-black/half-white.

** There was an episode when William was learning to hold a baby with a practice doll. At one point, he gave the doll to Maya, who left it on the patio... [[Series/Seinfeld and a dingo ate it]].

* ShoutOut: ** There was an episode when William was learning to hold a baby with a practice doll. At one point, he gave the doll to Maya, who left it on the patio...[[Series/Seinfeld and a dingo ate it]].

* ShoutOut: There was an episode when William was learning to hold a baby with a practice doll. At one point, he gave the doll to Maya, who left it on the patio...Series/Seinfeld and a dingo ate it.

** When planning a bachelor party, [[spoiler: for William when he was going to marry Yvonne]] Joan says that Timothy Murphy sent regrets, as he is prisoner Literature/LesMiserables 024601.

* ButNotTooBlack: Subverted with the main cast, which has a range of skin tones. Dealt with in-universe, with a episode about Toni (who has the darkest skin tone within the group) rejecting a date because she refuses to date dark-skinned black men. Toni’s justification is that she faced a lot of colorism growing up and doesn’t want her future children to be subject to the same hurtful comments that she dealt with. Also dealt with Lynn, who was raised by a white family and only started exploring her blackness when she became an adult. When Lynn gets a record deal, her label flat out tells her they don’t know how to market her indie music because she neither looks nor “sounds” black enough.

* LowerClassLout: Maya has shades of this, and Toni certainly thinks of her like one. The other women are educated and/or having high-paying careers, which in comparison makes Maya feel like she's "ghetto" as she lives in a working class neighborhood (the same one ''Series/{{Moesha}}'' lives in, in fact) and married her high-school sweetheart and already has a child.

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: had one for ''Series/TheGame2006'' in season 6.

* RunningGag: Toni regularly mispronounces Maya's son Jabari's name.

One of the longest-running sitcoms with a predominantly African American cast, ''Girlfriends'' aired on Creator/{{UPN}} (2000–06) and then Creator/TheCW (2006–08). The show centered around a group of women friends in Los Angeles: Joan Clayton (Creator/TraceeEllisRoss), Maya Wilkes (Golden Brooks), Lynn Searcy (Creator/PersiaWhite), and Toni Childs (Creator/JillMarieJones). Jones left after the sixth season.

[[quoteright:319:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girlfriendsseries_5642.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:319:L-R: Toni, Maya, Joan, Lynn]]

A show that aired on Creator/{{UPN}} and later Creator/TheCW. One of the longest-running sitcoms with a predominantly African American cast. For most of its run, it had the same main characters until Jill Marie Jones, the actress that played Toni left after the sixth season when her contract ended. It ran for 8 seasons until it was cancelled in early 2008, partly because of the writer's strike. Executive produced by, of all people, Creator/KelseyGrammer.

Not to be confused with the film [[Film/{{Girlfriends}} of the same title]] or the manga ''Manga/GirlFriends''.

* YourCheatingHeart:
** Toni [[spoiler: cheats on her boyfriend Greg with Clay, a doctor. She ends up getting an STI from him, and nearly passes it to Greg.]]
** Maya [[spoiler: emotionally cheats on her husband with Stan, until her husband got wind of it.]]
** Joan [[spoiler: emotionally and physically cheats on Ellis with Brock, but she eventually comes clean to Ellis.]]