'P-Valley' Episode 5 Review: Autumn and Mercedes team up as Lil' Murda woos Uncle Clifford
Things are heating up in Chucalissa! After the devastating ending of Episode 4, the show starts back up at the club with Keyshawn aka Miss Mississippi moment in the sun. As the camera spins around, you see the aftermath of Pynk's big night and the patrons swaying to Lil' Murder's song Fallin' that he wrote for Uncle Clifford.
The next morning, in the office, Uncle Clifford slips away from Lil' Murda's warm body and goes into the main floor to find a divorcee who spent the night getting drunk and spending her settlement money out of guilt after "cheating on her husband with his mama". After she is ushered out, the girls gather around Uncle Clifford accusingly because according to the pink-colored notice on the door, the Pynk's foreclosure is just 14 days away.
Meanwhile, Mercedes is being booked by the same man (who happens to be a cop) who couldn't keep his hands off Mercedes during her lap dance in Episode 1 and whose wallet Mercedes stole as retribution. This effectively shows that Mercedes who has all the power in the club is in the exact opposite position in the holding cells. It is telling that she feels safer inside Pynk than at the local police station with the men in the opposite jail cell cat-calling and staring at her stripper outfit, while some of them grab their junk.
But as she is shoved into a cell full of women (that includes the drunk divorcee arrested on a DUI), it gets a lot worse. She finds her mother, Patrice, is in the same cell and she instantly loses it all over again. The cell block serves as the battleground between mother and daughter as gladiators in an emotional battle of words. Their captive (and very colorful) audience members who are in the clinker for some pretty interesting crimes play judge and jury.
By the time Patrice is done working them over, she has all of the women singing and hollering for the Lord. And this is when Mercedes bends down and says her piece. "Mama, you're dead to me".
After the Pynk's girls fail to collect enough cash for Mercedes' bail and Uncle Clifford is told by Mercedes herself to concentrate on stacking the cash to save the Pynk, Mercedes resigns herself to stay in the clinker for a while. That's when she gets an unlikely savior in the form of Autumn Night. Despite walking out of the station like a boss, mirroring her proud strut to the stage, in the scene right after, Mercedes breaks down after just one kind pat from Autumn. The night she has had has broken her down completely.
Autumn's actions aren't of course purely out of the kindness of her heart but rather to have another name to wire the money to that she has been siphoning off as "retribution". It is also in this episode that she confirms that she lost her child in the floods when she was on the run from her abuser when she's roping Mercedes into her scheme.
But the bad news is that her abuser -- well versed in getting the cops to believe his sob story about searching for his lost wife after the floods -- has traced her money transfers all the way to Chucalissa and is dangerously close.
Uncle Clifford after bidding goodbye to Mercedes in jail takes his fight right to the corrupt mayor's stronghold -- the local Black barbershop where he holds court. The mayor is in a great mood, having pulled forward the Pynk's foreclosure date and almost being able to taste his legacy in the making (and the money he is going to make off it).
Uncle Clifford breezes in and brings him down to earth with a thud with the 'confidential' list of how much each property is being acquired for with the Black establishments getting half of what the White ones are getting.
This is damaging stuff and Uncle Clifford plays the blackmail game, but the mayor is determined to root her out, saying that no one is going to believe a "he-she" thing like her. The words and his disdainful expression are so hurtful that you cringe a little, but Uncle Clifford, after saying her piece, waltzes out of there.
But maybe the exchange hardens her up a little, reminding her of all the ways the world has pushed her away into the margins. So when Lil' Murda comes in, his eyes swimming with love, Uncle Clifford is a little extra cold as she lays out the realities and why their relationship is an impossible thing. Lil' Murda wants to take her "outside" on a date, but she tells him of all the gay couples murdered across town.
But Lil' Murda wears her resistance down slowly and sweetly until they are kissing again, excuses left in the rearview mirror. Keyshawn gets an eyeful of them as she peers into the room when no one opens the security gate -- she is now one more person who knows what is going on between the two.
The next episode of 'P-Valley' airs on August 16 at 8 PM ET on Starz.
