P-Valley Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Mercedes and Hailey channel Thelma & Louise

P-Valley Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Mercedes and Hailey get closer.

One of the best parts about the second half of P-Valley Season 1 is seeing Mercedes and Hailey working together as a unit. Now that Mercedes is involving in Hailey’s scams, the two have become certified besties.

The beginning of P-Valley‘s sixth episode opens with a montage of the pair donning multiple wigs as they use their fake IDs at different places all across the area. Mercedes’s close friend and possible love interest, Mane, continues to provide them with the cards as they get cash.

However, more than the money, perhaps the strongest bond created between Mercedes and Hailey has to do with their losses as mothers. Mercedes visits Terricka at the beginning of the episode and is disheartened to hear from Shelle, who is not happy that she had to blow off another hang out with her daughter because she was arrested.

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Mercedes might be Terricka’s real mother, but until she can prove to Shelle and the courts that she’s ready to have her daughter full-time, she can’t do much to build on their relationship.

Also, in case you didn’t realize, Shelle was previously married to a man named Cortez. While they were married, Cortez had an affair with Mercedes, and that’s how Terricka was born.

Cortez has since died, which is what they were referring to when discussing his ashes. It’s part of the reason she took the sting of losing the gym so hard, losing the security it would have provided was equitable to losing her daughter.

While counting their cash at Mercedes’s house, Hailey excuses herself to the bathroom and stumbles upon Terricka’s empty room. Mercedes finds her in there and, in a rare moment, opens up about her emotional struggles and dealing with not having her daughter there with her. It’s why she stays in Chucalissa.

Hailey, whose own daughter is gone, gets even more emotional, especially when she reveals to Mercedes that some days she struggles to say alive. She also encourages her new friend to do whatever she has to do to get her daughter back.

At the end of the episode, Hailey seems to try and give her daughter’s memory a proper send-off, and perhaps also to her relationship with Andre as she calls him and says goodbye.

P-Valley Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Keyshawn & Murda team-up.

Keyshawn is relishing in all the attention on social media. She comes up with a plan for both her and Lil Murda to profit from their success by trying to get themselves involved in a showmance. Not only will it help protect Murda while he continues his relationship with Uncle Clifford, but it could also help both of them blow up even more.

Keyshawn gets Clifford to let her throw a special night at The Pynk called Murda night, one where she’ll be the big headliner and Murda will be able to perform. Speaking of the rapper, he’s getting pressure from his team to produce more music.

They all note that he blew off a potential session for Clifford, although he doesn’t tell them that. Luckily, Keyshawn is there to cover for him and says the two were together that night.

P-Valley Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Big L has a proposition for Duffy.

In a brief scene, we see Duffy, Gidget’s boyfriend, and the drug runner, holed up in a hotel room with several naked women. He’s not exactly the best boyfriend,  I guess. Big L shows up at his place, as it’s not hard to find the local “candy man” in the area. He tells Duffy that The Pynk is in trouble, which means Duffy will need to find a  new place to stash his haul when traveling.

Big L apparently has some ideas of how to do that, he just wants to make sure Clifford doesn’t get hung out to dry in all of this and Duffy appears to agree. It’d certainly be interesting to learn more about Big L and Clifford’s relationship, as he is incredibly loyal to her and we know there’s a reason for that as it was previously mentioned that Clifford did something to save L’s life.

P-Valley Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Clifford gets some surprising allies.

We get more insight into Clifford’s home life in Episode 6 of P-Valley Season 1. At her home, she lives with GrandMuva Ernestine (Loretta Devine). Before The Pynk was The Pynk, it was a jukebox joint called Ernestine’s.

Unfortunately, Ernestine got into a lot of debt while running the place, and passed much of that debt onto Clifford, hence why she has struggled to get out of the pit all these years despite The Pynk’s success.

Also worth noting is that Ernestine is blind, but she tries not to let that keep her down as she’s incredibly charismatic and full of old stores — many of which she tells to Murda after he comes over the house and charms her, charming Clifford even more in the process.

However, one of the allies I’m referring to is a character we’ve met before, Mayor Ruffin’s secretary, Eloise. She’s basically a fly on the wall as many of the men she works with daily don’t pay her any attention.

According to show creator Katori Hall, this was an intentional choice by the writers.

"“Southern Black women in subordinate positions often are privy to a lot of hometown tea ‘lukewarm or scorching’ because people don’t see them. But best believe wallpaper can be powerful,” she said in a tweet."

We learn that Eloise used to work as a stripper at The Pynk back in the day. Clifford runs into her at the nail salon and reminds her that she was one of the first women she graduated back in the day, essentially asking her to remember her roots and her loyalty.

Well, after some thinking, it pays off. Eloise visits the club later to give Clifford the inside scoop on how to potentially stop the casino and save the club. Technically, the city council does not have to vote to allow the property to be installed, but if residents are motivated enough, they can call for one.

Neither Eloise nor Clifford think people in Chucalissa are going to be driven enough to do that, yet at the same time, they do love the strip club, it’s a hometown staple. If the regulars and locals were to find out it could get shut down, they might actually take a stand against the council and the mayor’s decision.

Ultimately, Eloise’s advice leads Clifford to jail. After being imprisoned for nine days, Patrice finally gets out thanks to Clifford’s assistance. We don’t know exactly what Clifford’s plan is, but she tells Patrice that she officially owes her and asks her just how badly does she want her church?

P-Valley Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Andre tries to strike a deal.

In one of the most powerful scenes of the episode, Andre visits Corbin, Wayne, and Wyatt Kyle to try and get the deal closed on the land. Things get ugly very fast as Corbin is still not happy about the idea of selling off all of their land, and his sole inheritance from their father. Obviously, the other Kyle brothers don’t care as they’ve been punishing their father for his infidelity for years.

They want their money now, not a leasing deal. Corbin starts pushing back against his Wayne and Wyatt and one of pulls a gun and holds it into his face. A white man pulling a gun on a Black man is always going to be a moment with intensity behind it, purely due to history.

It gets even uglier when Wyatt utters the line, “the Civil War ain’t over yet.”

Hall noted that the writers were careful not to make Wayne and Wyatt one-dimensional racists, they use racism as their final weapon, which is why the gun gets pulled. They want to ensure their father’s legacy is done and over with, but Corbin doesn’t feel the same way. That’s why they escalate things yet again to that point.

He even turns the gun onto Andre too as he tries to negotiate peace between the siblings. Ultimately, Corbin signs the papers, only to discover the gun wasn’t even loaded. It doesn’t matter because the emotion behind it all is still devastating.

Andre tries to start telling his wife about his life in Chucalissa, but there is palpable tension between them. She doesn’t understand his connection to the town and thinks Atlanta is his real home. Their conversation ends in anger as Andre disconnects from her and then looks at the deal paperwork for the Kyles yet again. He changes the documentation to a “leasing” agreement!

I’m not 100% I interpreted that scene correctly but I took it as Andre surreptitiously heeding Corbin’s desires after all, although I’m pretty sure that is illegal, so I’m sure things are going to get ugly before they get better.

New episodes of P-Valley Season 1 will return to Starz on August 30.