“What will the new year bring?” wondered Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott), one of the core members of the trio that anchors Netflix’s drama “Sweet Magnolias,” in the final moments of Season 4.
When Season 5 picks up six months later, the answer is summer, a season usually defined by the possibilities that warmer weather, looser schedules and longer days always present. However, in the small, fictitious Southern town of Serenity, nothing else changes all that much, keeping the stakes reliably low.
The 10 new episodes that dropped Thursday are consistent with past seasons of this comfort watch, including its overly simplified snapshot of the South and overly sentimental depiction of family life. What continues to keep the plot compelling is the friendship between Dana Sue, Maddie (JoAnna Garcia Swisher) and Helen (Heather Headley), whose margarita nights serve as the cornerstone of the show’s structure.
The difference in Season 5 is that they “pour it out” for the first time in New York City, where Maddie has accepted a job in the marketing department of an independent publisher. Dana Sue and Helen are in town visiting, and the three enjoy a girls’ trip and clink cocktail glasses in restaurants throughout the city before Maddie’s job, for lack of better phrasing, goes south.
It takes less than one episode for Maddie to find herself home once again in “Sweet Magnolias,” which is based on the books by Sherryl Woods. Back in Serenity, she returns to pouring it out with her two best friends as all three spend the summer trying to envision the changes that await them.
Maddie must find a new dream, or alter her old one of marketing books and helping authors establish a strong readership. Dana Sue wants to open a test kitchen after stepping back from Sullivan’s and preparing for life as an empty nester when her daughter, Annie (Anneliese Judge), leaves for college. Helen is planning her wedding to Erik (Dion Johnstone) and trying to reestablish the town’s art guild.
Because the show is a family-centered drama, it also incorporates a variety of subplots involving both the women’s partners and their kids. Maddie’s husband, Cal (Justin Bruening), is finding his footing as a stepdad and considering a return to baseball. Dana Sue’s husband, Ronnie (Brandon Quinn), is working nonstop to start his eBike business at the expense of his relationships with both his daughter and wife. Helen’s fiancé, Erik, is struggling with his past as wedding planning highlights trauma he’s never processed or shared with Helen.
The women’s kids also have small storylines woven throughout this season. Maddie’s son, Ty (Carson Rowland), who left at Christmas to tour abroad with his band, is still gone. This means that he’s broken Annie’s heart, which two new boys are trying to mend. She’s also preparing to leave for college at the end of the summer. Maddie’s younger son, Kyle (Logan Allen), is as theatrical as in past seasons and participates in a play with his girlfriend, Lily (Artemis), who is about to leave for college.
The subplots also trickle outwards to involve Noreen (Jamie Lynn Spears), the mother of Maddie’s ex-husband’s youngest child, who has taken over as manager at the Spa, and Isaac (Chris Medlin), who is stepping into a bigger role at Sullivan’s and navigating the pressures of his relationship with his boyfriend.
However, while all these characters’ complications take up a lot of screentime, they are far less captivating than the female friendship that anchors the show, and many feel like they were included to fill time instead of to tell a story.
Some subplots, especially those involving Ronnie and his eBike business and Kyle and his summer play, are so annoying that they detract from the more interesting storylines, such as Cal’s possible return to baseball, and from characters like Isaac, whose genuineness makes them compelling even if their storylines are not.
When Helen asks Maddie and Dana Sue to be her bridesmaids, she says, “Isn’t it incredible that despite the many different eras of my life, I’ve had one constant. You two.” The consistency of their friendship is what makes the show watchable, especially when the writing feels too moralizing and the acting too forced.
At a time when people are more likely to feel isolated and be estranged from their own family members, it is heartening to see how these three women consistently support each other through their lives’ valleys and peaks and the flat stretches in between. Their “magnolia magic” exemplifies the transformative power of friendship, but I’m doubtful that grace is enough to warrant the continuation of their stories.
After five seasons, the real question is whether margarita nights are enough to maintain viewership, and if Netflix will renew the show for a sixth season, or if these three friends have poured it out for the last time.
“Sweet Magnolias” is streaming on Netflix.
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