The universe of The Girlfriend Experience , which returns for a second season on Starz Sunday night, is so sterile you could perform surgery in it. For a show so preoccupied with sex and power—two intrinsically messy subjects—it takes place for the most part in disturbingly pristine environments.
A Republican fundraiser, Erica Anna Friel , lives in a vast townhouse more devoid of clutter and personal items than an upscale furniture catalog. A high-class sex worker, Anna Louisa Krause , entertains clients in a glass-walled apartment whose sole item of furniture is a vast white sectional she never once sits on.
Season 2 reboots the show altogether, introducing two entirely different narratives. Seimetz and Kerrigan have gone in opposite directions, after apparently wanting to pursue different themes. Friel, maybe the biggest name in the show, is outstanding as Erica, a fundraiser for a conservative super PAC intent on bringing the biggest donors into her orbit. On a whim, she records his phone conversation and leaks the tape to a contact working for Erica.
He deserves whatever he gets. Every interaction demands a winner and a loser; every small-stakes conversation becomes a tussle for supremacy. Bria is the partner of Donald Fairchild, a gangster and drug dealer. Policed all hours of the day by an overbearing U.
Kerrigan delves deeper into exploring sex and money as different sides of desire—the accumulation of capital, whether financial or personal, and the fluctuations of demand. Seimetz takes a more explicit examination of why women pursue sex work, what it means to them, and the toll it can ultimately take.
