Abby's Getting a Surprising Love Interest in the New Season of Girlfriends' Guide
#GG2D star Lisa Edelstein spills all the details about the new season.
After Abby exited Delia's disaster of a wedding, her professional and personal lives in shambles, we didn't know where the future would take her as Season 2 of Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce came to a close. However, the supertease for Season 3 of GG2D, which premieres on Wednesday, January 11 at 10/9c, shows an Abby with some newfound independence.
But not so fast, says star Lisa Edelstein. "I think the goal is freedom for Abby, and I think in Episode 1, you really start to realize that sometimes when everything falls apart, it's an opportunity to start new, and Abby really needs that," Lisa told The Daily Dish ahead of the Season 3 premiere. "Abby really, I think for the first two seasons, has been struggling with wanting the world to be the way the world isn't, and the more you do that, the more you cause yourself to suffer. So because everything has finally just sort of been exposed and collapsed, she gets to grow up a little bit. So it's fun. It's fun to see where she goes now."
In that new direction, there's a new love interest for Abby — her son's baseball coach, Mike (James Lesure). "I think she has been bitten in the ass so hard that way for so long as this point, including her experience with the gigolo, who she was foolish to believe that a hustler wouldn't hustle her because that's what he does for a living. So finally, by this season and this moment in her life, she is ready to see something different. And I think that's what happens with all of us when we do meet the person that we're right for is that suddenly a world of partners opens up to us that were invisible to us before," Lisa teased. "So when she meets Mike, it doesn't hit her right away. In fact, it takes her by surprise. Her body knows before her brain does that this is the guy that she's supposed to pay attention to. And he's very solid. He doesn't flit around. Her frenetic energy is sort of stabilized by his solid energy. And at the same time, his life is not in a great place. So there is struggle in that regard, and that's what makes it interesting."
It's not just Abby who has some major decisions to make this season, either. There's also a whole lot of new in her girlfriends' lives as Barbara (Retta) gets a new love interest in her contractor, Darrell (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), Phoebe (Beau Garrett) deals with the repercussions of her surprise marriage to J.D. (Aaron Staton), Delia (Necar Zadegan) experiences the fallout from her affair, and Jo (Alanna Ubach) struggles with saying goodbye to her ex-husband Frumpkis (Maury Sterling) while thinking about giving her fling with her baker, Scott (Will Kemp), a try. "To great effect in Episode 1, there's a scene that I laughed so hard, I cried," Lisa teased of Jo's new romance.
Lisa said she has particularly enjoyed filming the scenes that feature Abby with all of her girlfriends. "Season 3 on a show has a maturity that you don't get to experience until you get to a Season 3 on a show where everybody knows their job and the writers know who they're writing for, and there's something really cohesive about the girlfriends as a group this year. It's been very exciting to see," she said. "Everybody does beautiful work and everybody's got an interesting story to tell. And so, I think all the girlfriends scenes have particularly grown on me. There's so much energy and it's such a nice rapport."
We'll also see Abby and Jo's daughters grow up to become young women right before our very eyes. "This season and the next few seasons, they really sort of start participating in a way that we haven't seen before," Lisa explained. "And those two young actresses have done a beautiful job. It's really exciting to see them work."
Before all of that can begin, Abby has to hit rock bottom (no, turns out she wasn't quite there yet at the end of Season 2). She gives an impassioned speech in an effort to save her job at SheShe in which she feels like she is a leader to a generation of women in their midlife, which is something that may extend to viewers as well. "I think that because she's so flawed, yes. I think it's hard to look at a fictional character that's perfect and feel like you can relate. You might want to be that person, but you also don't feel like that's possible. So I love that Abby is as imperfect as she is and struggles as much as she does and still pushes forward," Lisa explained. "There used to be a toy when I was a kid called a Weeble, and the commercial was a Weeble wobbles, but it doesn't fall down. And basically, that's like Abby. So many scenes end where you think, 'Poor Abby,' but she always gets back up again. And she enthusiastically moves forward in her life. And I think that's aspirational for a lot of people."
But all of Abby's experiences — the good, the bad, and the ugly — have contributed to the character's growth this season, which we'll continue to see more of as the series heads toward its conclusion in Season 5. "The wonderful thing about telling a five-season story is that we know where our story ends. And so, we can really work towards this idea, rather than wait to find out whether we're continuing with the story and leave people hanging," Lisa said. "So that's the beauty of this structure that we're in right now as a creative community that's making Girlfriends' Guide that I think we'll be able to tell a really satisfying story."
Satisfy your craving for all of the delicious drama to come this season of GG2D, below.
