Summary
“Seven Pounds of Pressure” dabbles in some perhaps ill-advised spiritualism, but it also highlights that a change is coming to The Pynk, whether people like it or not.
This recap of P-Valley season 2, episode 2, “Seven Pounds of Pressure”, contains spoilers.
You’ll recall in last week’s premiere that Hailey wanted to audition some new talent for The Pynk, much to the chagrin of Mercedes, and “Seven Pounds of Pressure” uses the idea as a neat way to bring in some new blood. Whisper, Roulette, and Big Bone are the three girls who end up being hired, the former two to work the poles and the latter to work the bar, hand-picked by Mercedes – again, to the annoyance of everyone else – because she has the right look. It’s hard to argue with that, but it’s also hard to imagine that the internal politics of this place are going to withstand much scrutiny, and scrutiny is certainly coming.
P-Valley season 2, episode 2 recap
For the most part “Seven Pounds of Pressure” continues the storylines introduced in that premiere. The possible sale of The Pynk is floated as an idea that Hailey might be interested in, especially now she has a majority ownership stake, and it’s Andre and Corbin who’re pushing that idea. With Hailey moving up the club’s re-re-re-opening to the day of Uncle Clifford’s birthday, a clear no-no-no for everyone else who works there, it’s obvious the two aren’t exactly on the same page.
But there’s still the mayoral race to consider, and as we predicted, there are some strong implications here that it’ll be Andre who moves towards a political career. There’s even a telling flashback in which Tydell – whose estate he has become executor of – encourages him that he could even be president one day if he so wanted. It’d make sense as a way to keep Andre shackled to Chucalissa for the remainder of the season.
The other ongoing thread is Lil Murder’s tour. A good chunk of this episode is spent on Keyshawn trying to finesse Derrick into allowing her to participate, which is pretty much mandatory since virtually the entire thing has been booked around her considerable appeal, but you know how Derrick is. He even manages to get Diamond fired from the dollar store for “screaming at her”, which is the excuse she comes up with after the Sheriff – who was present because Derrick still wants to press charges for Diamond assaulting him at the club – mentioned he works there, which Derrick matched with the updates he gets to his phone about Keyshawn’s location. So, he’s a lunatic, obviously, but he doesn’t get a job he’s going for and is, like all men, much less inclined to think straight when all the blood in his body is somewhere other than his brain, so he eventually allows Keyshawn to go on tour.
Lil Murda even stops by Uncle Clifford’s place to leave her a message with Miss Ernestine, which is a nice little scene.
Clifford doesn’t want to celebrate her birthday, but she’s whisked away to a surprise party during the re-re-re-opening, but even that doesn’t go well when Mercedes, still feeling upstaged by the new girls, overexerts on the pole and ends up falling from quite a height. The shoulder that has been troubling her inexplicably gave out, and when Clifford summons Diamond to diagnose the problem, he ends up magically extracting seven pounds of pressure from the area. He even weighs it on a set of scales, which means that, as far as I can tell, P-Valley has suddenly and rather inexplicably pivoted into the outright supernatural. A scene earlier, of Whisper communicating with the rickety brass pole in the Paradise Room, suddenly takes on a more literal significance, though it’s hard to say whether the show really needs this angle (it almost certainly doesn’t.)
Because Diamond equates those seven pounds to the pressure necessary to pull a gun’s trigger, the issue is traced back to the shooting of Montavius, which pushes Mercedes even further away from Hailey and compels her to throw her new boss out of her apartment. It looks like Hailey will be sleeping at the club for the near future.
But a change is inevitably coming. A big one. And it’s hard to say at this point who else it might affect, which is always the mark of a compelling drama. Thus far, this second season hasn’t disappointed.
You can stream P-Valley season 2, episode 2, “Seven Pounds of Pressure”, exclusively on Starz.
