Girls5eva Season 1, Episode 3 recap: Alf Musik

Girls5eva Season 1, Episode 3 begins with Dawn and Scott waking up suddenly after getting an alert from the Egg Hunter app, Dawn is ovulating which means it’s the optimum time to try for another baby! But Dawn isn’t in the mood to get down and dirty between the sheets first thing in the morning, so she asks Scott if they can postpone it until later. It kind of seems like Dawn isn’t as into it as Scott.

At Nick’s restaurant, Wickie is already suffering at her new waitressing job. The girls meet there to start planning the next phase of their reunion, which means producing new songs so Larry won’t own the rights to their content anymore. They find out the guy who wrote their old songs is a big-time songwriter named Alf Musik (yes, that is Stephen Colbert) and they use Wickie’s “Jonathan Barron” persona to get a meeting (under false pretenses).

Back to the baby drama, Scott tries to initiate some babymaking again and Dawn shoots him down. She admits that reuniting Girls5eva has made her second-guess having a second child.

Girls5eva Season 1, Episode 3 recap: Girls5eva tries to figure out their new image.

The ladies then gather in their car to visit Alf. Of course, he doesn’t recognize them at all, “which means you must be Girls5eva! And only one of you is dead, which is pretty good.” He considers them his only failure (apart from his nine failed marriages).

But real talk, it has been an entire Zendaya since these ladies have recorded music which means they’ve got to be tested to see if they still got it. Alf is impressed enough to agree to help them and the ladies are pumped! Wickie immediately quits the restaurant.

Post-meeting, Wickie and Dawn walk back to the apartment, bubbling with excitement over what’s next for them. Teens will Tik-Tok to their music (“Charle D’Amelio will figure it out”)!

But then Dawn notices her son Max fist-bumping the doorman and is rattled by what Gloria said to her earlier, that Max is a “classic New York lonely boy,” a son born to older parents who is more comfortable with adults than kids his own age. They usually wear a fedora and high-five doormen, John Slattery has one and so does Kyle MacLachlan, too, Matthew Broderick is one.

It gets even worse at home when Max draws a picture of his imaginary doorman friend and tries to dance to weird motivational synth music. Dawn realizes they need to give Max a sibling so their son isn’t a New York lonely boy anymore.

Back at Alf’s house, the girls gather to sing the first song Alf birthed for them via sauna fever. They get together in the recording studio to try singing the chorus and immediately realize that it’s pretty misogynistic. The group is split down the middle, Wickie and Summer are into it but Gloria and Dawn don’t want to sing the sexist lyrics.

That’s when they realize that all of their old stuff was also incredibly sexist featuring lyrics like, “if my man does cheat we’ll only get real mad at the other girl / it was her fault only,” “jail bait / great at sex / but it’s our first time,” and “we may be incredible but that don’t mean we’re credible.”

“Oh my god, are we part of the problem? Did we cause Hilary to lose Pennsylvania?” But Wickie argues it’s not just them, pop music has tons of sexy messages like “Slave 4 U,” “Cater 2 U” and “dancing queen was only 17.” Dawn says sure, they sang this as teenagers but they’re adults now! They should sing things that fit their empowering message.

Despite their misgivings, Alf overhears their argument (smart house!) and decides that he will try writing them a song from an adult woman’s perspective, it’s a unique challenge for him.

We pivot to Dawn, who is trying to coax Max into having a normal childhood by taking him for ice cream. He wants Earl Grey instead of chocolate and begs to visit a Fedora & Fountain Pens store. As Dawn tries to fight it, John Slattery, his wife and son (all playing themselves) turns up and tells her to let it happen.

According to the Slattery family, a New York lonely boy is the greatest gift a parent could ask for. John tells him that his son, Harry, has all kinds of unique interests and she won’t ruin her son by not having a second baby.

When the ladies return to Alf, he has a new song for them and it’s dark and depressing, all about being a really sad woman. Wickie claims that’s not indicative of who they are as a group.

Girls5eva Season 1, Episode 3 recap: Dawn accepts that she doesn’t want another baby right now.

Alf disagrees because he followed them and witnessed their sad lives including Dawn freshening her armpit with a Listerine breath strip, Summer excitedly answering a spam call and Wickie getting stuck on an escalator because she wouldn’t abandon her too-high heels. She broke a heel and replaced it with an inverted Coke bottle. “It was so sad to me.”

Despite everything Alf saw, the women claim they’re not sad and they don’t want his song. They’ll get to Jingle Ball on their own. Dawn is going to write a song for them.

Surprisingly, Alf is okay with them leaving him. He’s never felt the sting of rejection before. “I must use it. Emil, get me Ed Sheeran.”

The Girls5eva journey with songwriting also helps Dawn form a decision regarding their baby journey. She doesn’t want to have another baby, but Scott does. They agree that their conversation isn’t over, and they’ll revisit it later.

Wickie joins Max on the couch to watch Chernobyl and pops open the Coke she was using as a makeshift heel, and that’s why I love this show.

Girls5eva Season 1 is now streaming on Peacock TV.