P-Valley Season 1, Episode 4 recap: The Trap

P-Valley Season 1, Episode 4 recap: The Trap

The fourth episode of P-Valley Season 1 opens with Keyshawn entertaining a disrespectful guest. He degrades her and her profession as a whole until Mercedes shows up and essentially says he needs to fork over some cash or get out.

“Freckles,” as she dubs him, digs his grave deeper when he throws money for Keyshawn on the ground. Diamond chokes him out until he picks it up and hands it to her like a decent person, and then tosses him out.

Mercedes tries to make Keyshawn feel better after, but the incident has rattled her. She starts to wonder if maybe he has a point and what they’re doing is wrong or degrading in some way.

More from Starz

• BMF: Interview with Production Designer Kathrin Eder
• 9 of the best Valentine’s Day gifts and cards to give pop culture fans
• Hightown Season 2 newcomer Jona Xiao spills on her character Daisy
• Hightown Season 2: Riley Voelkel spills on Renee’s new journey this season
• Hightown executive producer Gary Lennon teases what’s to come in Season 2

After picking up her money from the wire transfer, Hayley takes it to her apartment and douses it in alcohol, I assume to clean it or try and wash the print off the front, likely so they can’t tell where it came from. At the bank, she tells them a client spilled his beer all over her cash.

At her soon-to-be-gym, Mercedes meets with the building owner Sinclair and details her goals of opening the place up and selling “an experience,” something she knows, and we know, she’s excellent at. Her plan is to charge $200 for the girls to get a subscription, allowing them to take a variety of classes and build up their skills, see if they have what it takes to become a Chucalissa Challenger.

She recommends Mercedes try leasing a place instead, not trusting in her plan to succeed, but Mercedes says she’s committed. Still, she’ll need to pay the down payment ASAP if she wants to nab the place before it goes to someone else.

Sinclair also advises her to up her asking price to $250.

“Dreams are expensive.”

Speaking of her money, Patrice is busy singing like a songbird in the bank drive-thru when a homeless man approaches her car and tosses her a coin. Then she closes out her account and takes the check with Mercedes money. Let’s just hope she actually gives it to her daughter.

At The Pynk, Gidget tries to give Hayley a quick lesson in pole-dancing. By the end, she sort of starts to get the hang of it, just in time for Clifford to come in and see her, Gidget, and Keyshawn together.

She thinks they could be his new trio when Mercedes leaves, although Keyshawn and Gidget have other plans. They’re going to be a duo called Salt and Pepper.

Clifford asks Hayley to come see her in the back office. Once they leave the room, Keyshawn reveals to Gidget that she overheard Clifford and Andre’s conversation in the Paradise Room about a casino coming to build over the pink. Gidget doesn’t think Clifford would let that happen.

“Sounds like he doesn’t have much choice in the matter,” notes Keyshawn.

In Clifford’s office, she tells Autumn that after some more researching, she’s discovered that the guys planning to build this casino are willing to shell out major cash for the property.

Corbin and the Kyles are worth about half a million, according to him, yet they’re making almost six. Autumn asks how much they offered Clifford, and she admits they haven’t because while he owns The Pynk property, she’s in debt.

Yet she sounds confident Mercedes’ last dance will get them out of the red. Autumn isn’t so sure that will be enough and some part of Clifford must agree, likely the whole reason she called her in there was for her final ask of sending her back to Andre to find out more.

She’s not interested, thinking he’s a creep and stalker with pictures of her on his laptop. Clifford scoffs, Andre took pics of all of them — she’s not that special.

Andre himself is in the middle of a business meeting with a key investor on the casino deal with his godfather Mayor Ruffin beside him. During the webchat, Andre lets it slip that they may have a problem with The Pynk, although Ruffin assures Bill they’re going to move along the foreclosure to get the property on the market sooner rather than later.

After the call, Ruffin, who is a real nasty piece of work, confronts Andre about telling Bill that a potential caveat could ruin the deal. He instructs Andre to stay away from The Pynk and get the Kyle deal done by the end of the week while he handles Clifford. He doesn’t want anything getting in the way of his plan to get the casino in town and have money “rain down on Chuccalissa.”

Surprise, surprise, Mercedes can’t seem to get in touch with her mother to pick up the check. She visits her daughter’s new house and sits in Terricka’s room, missing her daughter calling her — but she, too, is unavailable (she’s still grounded).

The reason Patrice isn’t picking up her phone is she’s too busy dominating the pulpit at church, even when Pastor Gilfield tries to get her to stop.

He eventually grabs the microphone and forces her out of the main room, threatening to send her to another church if she tries to overstep again. He doesn’t think a woman belongs on the pulpit, although Patrice points out the congregation seemed to like her just fine.

At The Pynk, Mercedes is enjoying one of her last night’s at the Pynk, visiting with Coach, who gives her a new necklace with her name in diamonds for the pendant.

Backstage, however, things aren’t going so well when Gidget lets it slip that the club might be closing down. The girls are upset, obviously, and Clifford tries to calm everyone down. Then Mercedes walks in and hears the tail-end of the conversation, making it known she’s been aware of the problem since the beginning.

Both Keyshawn and Gidget are upset she kept it from them since they’re her closest friends at the club. But Mercedes doesn’t feel bad for them since they’ve been blowing through their stacks and not carefully saving as she has over the years.

Off work for the night, Hayley confronts Andre about what she found on his laptop. She does apologize for going through his things but also accuses him of being a hypocrite and screwing a bunch of people in the town over.

Things get heated between them and Andre hits the lowest when he makes a comment on her kid, which reduces her to angry tears until she’s swinging at him. He holds her as she sobs in his arms.

Hayley spends the night with him in his hotel room, although nothing happens between them. She does tell Andre that her daughter is gone, now whether that means she’s dead or with someone from her past isn’t yet clear. On her way out, Hayley runs her finger along the curve of Andre’s wedding ring — “She’s lucky.”

In a montage, we see Hayley leave Andre’s, touch herself up, and get ready for her next couple of scams. Two more wire transfers, and two more wigs, and she’s taken $18,000 more from Lakeisha Savage’s account. At the same time, Mercedes gets all dolled up for her big final dance.

Just like Clifford predicted, the traffic is backed up to the interstate. Mercedes draws a crowd, she’s the OG for a reason. Lil Murda shows up to The Pynk, eager to impress her with his new song which he hopes will put him on the map if she plays it during her set. Diamond isn’t keen on letting him into the club, but Clifford gives the go-ahead.

Mercedes pulls up shortly after and notices Hayley waltzing into the club, looking a little cocky. She can’t help but release a little mini tirade against her in her car, “looking like she’s walking in with ten stacks,” of course the irony is, Hayley actually does have ten stacks on her — more than that.

Before entering the club, Mercedes makes one last effort to get in touch with Patrice. Voicemail full. And to make matters worse, Sinclair shoots her a text to say she got a competing offer and Mercedes only has until midnight to drop off the cashier’s check.

Inside, Mercedes is touched to see that all the girls joined together to deck out her locker with sweet pictures and streamers, congratulating her and wishing her well for the future.

They also gift her a special new diamond-encrusted outfit that she looks stellar in. Gidget is still pissed about earlier though and blows her off as they get ready for the stage.

Keyshawn is a little more understanding, but sad, as she worries what will happen to her if the club goes under. She thinks Mercedes is stronger than her and she’s right in that Keyshawn never saved much. Without The Pynk, she’s not sure what other job she could get.

Elsewhere in the club, Lil Murda is scheming, trying to convince DJ Neva Scared to play his track, but he’s terrified of doing something to disrupt Mercedes’ last dance, he suggests the rapper just wait but he specifically wants Mercedes’ blessing.

Once she makes her grand entrance into the room and the VIP section to meet up with Coach, who managed to sneak out of the house again, he congratulates her and wishes her the best. But Coach is insulted on Mercedes’s behalf that he even dared to approach her.

Before taking the stage, Mercedes continues making her rounds. She hands the new necklace from Coach over to L in the office, I’m guessing so he can cash it in for the club. Then she says her goodbyes to Clifford, which is brief and brutal. She even offers to stay, but she knows she’s gotta let her go.

“That’s what a boss b*tch does, throw out baby birds.”

Then Patrice arrives, stepping on one of the Last Dance flyers as she does before finally calling Mercedes back. Mercedes tells her Patrice to meet her at the nearby Kroger instead of coming to the club. Before she leaves, she and Hayley square-off for a few more terse digs. Hayley is definitely gonna try to step up and replace Mercedes on her way out the door — or window, or whatever they were saying.

Back in the main room, Murda and his pal Pico come to blows after Pico suggests he’s a punk that gets used by lots of people in town. Murda starts throwing punches and gets himself kicked out by Diamond. I admit I was little confused on this exchange, what exactly was Pico so pissed about?

Then comes the kicker. I knew something bad was going to happen with Patrice and Mercedes money and just like I expected, that evil woman swooped in and bought Mercedes’s gym out from under her with HER OWN MONEY and said she was planning to use it for her new church since “God” told her she deserved her own pulpit.

I did not blame Mercedes one bit for attacking her mom in that parking lot, she deserved it.

P-Valley Season 1, Episode 4 recap: The episode’s final moments.

Unfortunately, that kerfuffle leads to her missing out on her big final performance, so Keyshawn steps up to the plate to take over. She delivers an incredible routine to Murda’s song! And he hears it playing over the speakers from outside the club.

Even more surprising? The song is about Clifford, who seems to figure it out when she hears the lyrics. She goes outside to find Murda and the rapper admits it. The two go back to Clifford’s office and have sex, the scene spliced with Keyshawn’s dance, which goes incredibly well.

By the end, she looks totally starry-eyed beneath a shower of confetti and dollar bills, lots of cellphone lights shining down on her. This is a golden moment for her and it’s easy to see why she doesn’t want to leave and why that man from the beginning of the episode truly had no clue what he was talking about.

That said, I really hope Keyshawn starts to value herself more in the coming weeks, that poor girl deserves to be lifted up, another reason this scene felt so monumental to her character arc.

Mercedes, though, is absolutely devastated. She and her mother are escorted away from the premises in separate cop cars as she breaks down into tears, her dreams gone up in smoke right before her eyes.

What did you think of the latest episode of P-Valley? Do you think Mercedes will return to The Pynk? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

New episodes of P-Valley air Sunday nights at 8 p.m. on Starz.