Mamas of The Valley
In P-Valley, motherhood adds depth and complexity to a fantastic set of characters
*Warning: If you have not watched the series — especially the finale — -there are spoilers
Activist and playwright Katori Hall brought her renowned play, “Pussy Valley” from the stage to television screens this past summer, rewarding us with a well-needed break from pandemic news coverage. P-Valley gives us a look into a small-town Mississippi strip club called “The Pynk” and the lives of the dancers that enchant the stage every night. While romantic, cinematic displays of acrobatic exotic dancing and voluptuous bodies are in full force, the show is not lacking at all in grit and rich stories about the women of The Pynk.
One major storyline consistent through the first season is how motherhood touches on all of the main characters and the conflict and sometimes tragedy that comes from having less than perfect maternal relationships and sacrifices mothers make for their children. The theme of motherhood and what it means to be a mother weaved its way into P-Valley’s core messaging around women and their survival choices.
The Woodbines: Patrice, Mercedes, and Terricka
In the first episode, Hall introduces the audience to the original gangster of The Pynk; the curvy, money motivated Mercedes. As the most famous dancer at The Pynk, she takes pride in her status symbol as a talented performer and a community staple. When she is not performing at The Pynk, Mercedes is a coach for the Chucalissa majorette dance team and plans to retire from dancing and open up a gym to train competitive majorette teams. We also meet Mercedes’ mother, Patrice, a born-again Christian with her eye on the pulpit who strongly disagrees with Mercedes’ career choice. However, we learn that even though Patrice disapproves of Mercedes dancing, she has no issue taking money from Mercedes to line her church’s account to be more appealing for a potential capital improvement loan. After Patrice berates Mercedes outside the club one night with a hyper-religious rant at the end of episode one, Mercedes gives Patrice all the money she earned that night out of guilt and frustration, instead of adding it to her savings for her gym.
Throughout the first season, Mercedes and Patrice’s issues become even more heated, resulting in a massive blowup between Patrice and Mercedes after Patrice buys Mercedes’s new gym’s potential location from under Mercedes, with funds stolen from Mercedes. Mercedes becomes even more livid when Patrice expresses her hopes of opening up a church. A physical fight ensues, and both Mercedes and Patrice are arrested and spend a weekend in jail, ruining the celebration of Mercedes’s last dance at The Pynk. Mercedes tells Patrice she is dead to her after a weekend-long airing of their grievances towards one another, a comment Mercedes grows to regret.
Amid the drama between Mercedes and her mother, we learn that Mercedes is the biological mother of Terricka, the majorette team captain. Other episodes add detail to the complicated situation between Mercedes and Terricka: Terricka’s father, Cortez, was married and having an affair with Mercedes when she became pregnant with Terricka. Cortez passes away at some point, and for reasons we never truly learn, Mercedes loses custody of Terricka. Terricka is now staying with Cortez’s widow Chelle, despite Mercedes’s numerous attempts to regain primary custody. There’s tension between Mercedes and Chelle, not just because of the affair but also because of Mercedes’ inconsistency in Terricka’s life. Terricka often voices her contempt for her living situation and frustration with Mercedes for not being more stable. These exchanges reveal that both Mercedes and Terricka are hurting by being separated from one another.
This multi-generational conflict of motherhood shows both Mercedes and Terricka being disappointed in what appears to be their mothers’ inability to love them the way they need to be loved. Mercedes feels judged and exploited by Patrice, but still yearns for her mother’s love. Terricka is often disappointed by Mercedes’ flakiness but grows restless with not being able to live with Mercedes full-time. Mercedes being the center, badly wants to be accepted and loved by both her mother and her daughter and feels she disappoints them both because of her choices. Mercedes also sees much of herself in Terricka because she knows what it feels like for your mother to consistently let you down. Disappointing Terricka strongly impacts Mercedes because the last thing she wants to do is be anything like the way Patrice was as a mother. Still, her desire to grind gets in the way of her prioritizing Terricka. In the season finale, after a harrowing night of events, we see Mercedes begging for her mother to forgive her for saying she was dead to her, but Patrice turns her away, still hurting from Mercedes harsh words. Even in her anger and disappointment with Patrice, Mercedes is like a little girl who desperately wants her mother’s love.
Keyshawn (Miss Mississippi) and baby Regal
We meet Keyshawn in the first episode as she burst through The Pynk’s dressing room doors, stressing over a gash she got from a customer’s beer bottle while performing. We learned that it is her first night back to the stage after being on maternity leave and giving birth via C-section. The following day Keyshawn arrives at practice with bruises, and the audience learns that she is in a long-term abusive relationship with a partner that is very unhappy with her choosing to dance. Along with the bruises, she also arrives with her newborn baby girl, Regal, that everyone takes turns looking after while Keyshawn either practices or performs. Keyshawn and Regal represent many mothers’ experiences with abusive partners and their lack of support for their career goals. It becomes clear that Keyshawn’s partner Derrick is not only abusing her but uses baby Regal as a form of control. He shows up late in the evenings to The Pynk to drop off Regal instead of keeping her while Keyshawn is at work, assumingly to make it difficult for Keyshawn to maintain employment.
Towards the end of the season, the audience learns Derrick is white, adding racialized complexity to the situation. Keyshawn chooses to stay with Derrick mainly because of her desire to have a family for her children, even if it causes her physical harm. During the season finale, Derrick slams Keyshawn up against a wall, and The Pynk’s security guard, Diamond, who happens to have a crush on Keyshawn, witnesses her abuse firsthand. Diamond confronts Derrick in the men’s restroom, and the two begin fighting. Keyshawn wielding a gun breaks up the fight and threatens Diamond to stop attacking Derrick, or she would shoot. The action was shocking to Diamond and many of the show’s audience but those familiar with how domestic violence works we’re not surprised. It is common for survivors to protect their abusers because of the way they are groomed and manipulated into believing that their abuser is the only person that truly cares about them. Keyshawn’s desire to keep her family intact for her children regardless of what it might mean for her is her survival tactic. Sacrificing her safety so that her children can have stability makes sense to her even if she is scared and unhappy. However, there are hints that Keyshawn is possibly working at The Pynk to build her savings to escape from Derrick in season two.
Gidget and Her Unseen Mother
Gidget is the only white performer at The Pynk. She has minor lines but is a part of the famous Trinity, including Mercedes and Keyshawn. Conversations between the characters reveal that Gidget’s mother has an addiction to opioids. In one episode, we see Gidget grinding up what appears to be oxycodone to put in her mother’s morning smoothie. The opioid crisis is ripping through the United States, especially in the Midwest and the south in more impoverished, rural communities. Hence, it’s not surprising that a character on a show based in Mississippi is struggling with opioid addiction. Still, it also gives insight into the mother-daughter dynamic between Gidget and her mother, who we do not see on screen. Gidget knows her mother struggles with addiction but wants to keep her happy and calm, so she takes pills from her dealer boyfriend and lies about who the drugs are for and prepares the narcotics for easy consumption. One could say that Gidget is an enabler, but when your parent is the addict, it’s far more complicated. Sometimes keeping them medicated is the only thing that keeps them from abusing you. Gidget also reveals her protective motherly spirit when confronting Derrick, Keyshawn’s abusive partner during the season finale. Gidget strongly warned Derrick about beating Keyshawn, stating that she would take Keyshawn and her children away from Derrick and keep her safe. Gidget’s mother struggling with addiction means she possibly could not form a strong bond with her mother or have a stable home life, so the women of The Pynk are the most stable family in Gidget’s life. She treats them the way she would want her real family to treat her and is fiercely protective of the women.
Hailey and Baby Autumn
The main character of P-Valley is a mysterious woman that appears in the first episode. She winds up in Chucalissa on a whim and enters the amateur night contest at The Pynk. She gives the club owner Uncle Clifford the name “Autumn Night” as her stage name. After winning the contest, she asks Uncle Clifford for a job at The Pynk and starts the following night. We see Autumn, who reveals her real name is Hailey, at home abusing alcohol and staring at old photos of a young toddler girl that we assume is her daughter; however, the daughter’s whereabouts throughout the season are unknown until the very end. We learn that Hailey’s daughter, whose name was Autumn, drowned as Hailey escaped her abusive relationship during the night of a hurricane. Her daughter’s loss and the abuse she suffered left Hailey with extreme PTSD and a drinking problem she struggled to get control over until going cold turkey.
We see flashes of Hailey’s life as a mother, first as she held baby Regal for Keyshawn, and in lucid dreams about the night of the hurricane. Hailey finds common ground with Mercedes, whom she did not get along with at first meeting, over the “loss” of their daughters. Mercedes tells Hailey how she could make more money in bigger markets dancing, but she stays in town because she wants to be near Terricka. Hailey encourages Mercedes never to give up fighting for Terricka. After all, Terricka was still alive, which means she had a chance to be with her and have a relationship, something Hailey would never have again because Autumn was gone. The man that abused Hailey, her former partner Montavious shows up at the end of the season and confronts Hailey at The Pynk over stolen money in the season finale. During a showdown between Hailey, Mercedes, and Montavious in the Paradise Room, Hailey reveals to Montavious that Autumn died the night of the hurricane as she ran to escape him. Montavious essentially mocks Hailey for her daughter’s death, claiming she deserved her daughter dying, which sets off both her and Mercedes. Montavious is shot by either Mercedes, Hailey, or uncle Clifford, the audience is not privy to who pulled the trigger. However, one could only assume the taunting from her daughter’s death, and the anger from the abuse lead Hailey to end Montavious’ rain of terror once and for all. Even after her death, Hailey wanted to protect her little girl from pain.
At first glance, P Valley gives the impression of a raunchy good time. A story about exotic dancers made for TV could’ve easily just been a scripted drama filled with sex, criminal activity, and backstabbing. But the stories shown on P-Valley run deep, and motherhood, predominantly black motherhood in America, is a beautiful and intricate experience. Katori Hall captures all of the triumph and pain of motherhood in all of these women and their stories. The most vital message of all is that there’s always love in the details even though the pain.
