But these bitches grind harder
Climbing up the pole
Just to get out the bottom
The crowd, below
Stay ready for the show
The pimps, the dough
Don’t let it take your soul
P-Valley is a Starz 2022 television drama series. Based on the play Pussy Valley by Katori Hall, P-Valley is about the lives and relationships of the strippers and employees of The Pynk, a strip club in the fictional town of Chucalissa, Mississippi.
Mercedes (Brandee Evans) is the lead stripper and main attraction, but is looking for a way out of the business. Her mother Patrice (Harriett D. Foy) is a devout Christian who regularly condemns her job, but has no problem taking her money. Mercedes reluctantly takes new dancer Hailey (Elarica Johnson) under her wing, as she comes to the club in search of solace after losing her daughter and surviving a hurricane. Keyshawn (Shannon Thornton) is a dancer that is constantly abused by her boyfriend. While the strippers work the pole, business also happens: Lil Murda (J. Alphonse Nicholson) is an up-and-coming rapper trying to promote his music at The Pynk while being in the closet. Andre Watkins (Parker Sawyers) — a commercial investment associate, and Corbin Kyle (Dan J. Johnson) — heir to the Kyle family farm, are trying to close a deal but get swept by the club's atmosphere and its dancers. And at the center of it all is Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan), the flamboyant owner of The Pynk who runs the club with confidence.
Set in the background of an impoverished Mississippi town and the cutthroat world of small town politics, The Pynk is a place of escape with its intoxicating atmosphere and the salacious stories within.
This series contains the following tropes:
- Armoured Closet Gay: Lil Murda, who tries to keep his sexuality on the down low, which becomes hard as he falls for Uncle Clifford.
- Bad Influencer: Downplayed in the case of Keyshawn, who is adept at maintaining a perfect image once videos of her dancing start going viral.
- Big Damn Heroes: Hailey saves The Pynk from the auction block by outbidding Andre, and dumping the money on the podium when told that the funds must be readily available in order to purchase it.
- But Not Too Black: A recurring theme, and it's implied that is why Mercedes disliked Hailey at first sight with Hailey being light-skinned and seen as more desirable.
- Camp Gay: Uncle Clifford, who is also non-binary/transfeminine and uses she/her pronouns. In The Pynk, she is more herself and dresses more flamboyantly and feminine but in her day life, she dresses and presents herself as a campy gay man.
- Censored Title: P-Valley is short for Pussy Valley, the play that the show is based on. It's also a nickname for The Pynk.
- Closet Key: Mercedes becomes this for Farrah; who is married to a man.
- Driven to Suicide: Big Teak
- Domestic Abuse: Keyshawn is regularly hit by her boyfriend. Uncle Clifford tells her that even she was abused by a man.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Lil Murda wears the colors of a rival gang to kill his former friend Pico as revenge for him claiming to be the killer of Big Teak.
- Egocentrically Religious: Patrice. She is devout but most of her praise and worship is centered around her ego.
- Foil:
- Mixed in with irony in regard to Mercedes and her mother Patrice. Mercedes is a tough-as-nails stripper and Patrice is a devout Baptist. Despite this, Mercedes has the moral highground over her mother; her ambitions are lofty but modest, she pushes her dance team to be their best, tries to be there for her daughter, and is there for the other strippers at The Pynk and truly cares about the club. Patrice is ambitious to a fault, hypocritical, constantly berates her daughter for being stripper and even steals the money Mercedes gave her to hold.
- Hailey and Mercedes as well. Both come to realize that they have a lot in common after disliking each other, including shared loss in their daughters.
- Half-Breed Angst: Downplayed for Corbin Kyle, he is the illegitimate son of a white wealthy cotton farmer and a black housekeeper. He is looked upon as not an actual part of the the Kyle family, but seems otherwise not affected by being in two worlds.
- Harmful to Minors: The Pynk's DJ is DJ Neva Scared, who is still a teenager in high school, but works in a strip club.
- Holier Than Thou: Mercedes's mother Patrice who judges Mercedes for stripping and being a hoe, but gladly takes her money to pay off church loans and keep it off the books.
- Manly Gay: Lil Murda, who is an up-and-coming rapper that is struggling with his sexuality and attraction to men. Murda is enmeshed with Hip-Hop thug culture and is hyper-masculine in the way he dresses and acts.
- Mistaken for Murderer: Pico claims the killing of Big Teak (he committed suicide instead).
- Real Name as an Alias: Unlike the other strippers, Mercedes uses her real first name as her "stripper" name.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Hailey's young daughter passed before the events of the series.
- Parental Betrayal: Just when Mercedes is about to put place a down payment on a property for her dance gym, her mother Patrice uses the money Mercedes gave her to purchase the property for herself and for her potential church. Mercedes and her mom have a physical confrontation, and both are arrested by authorities.
- Single Mom Stripper: Mercedes has a teenage daughter, the result of being the "other woman" in an affair with Cortez, a married man. Mercedes is stripping in order to get enough money to buy a dance gym and prove herself a fit mother as primary custody with Cortez's wife
- Small-Town Tyrant: Mayor Tydell Ruffin, who is desperate to land a casino in Chucalissa and willing to bend the law to get rid of The Pynk.
- Southern Gothic: P-Valley has elements of this, especially with the backdrop of Mississippi, the poorest state in the United States. The neighborhoods are falling apart, and almost everyone is poor. The Pynk acts as an escape for many people from their financial situations.
- Starting a New Life: Autumn starts off the series escaping her old life in Texas after a hurricane and flood destroys her town.
- Suddenly Ethnicity: The show plays with the audience's expectations by making everyone think that Keyshawn's abusive boyfriend Derrick is Black like her. But alas, in the fifth episode of season 1, it's revealed that he is white.
- Token White: Gidget, the club's sole white dancer.
