Breaking Down (Almost) Every Pop Culture Reference in ‘Girls5Eva’

For the pop culture obsessive, Girls5Eva is nothing short of a gold mine. Practically every other line contains a thrilling little nod to a moment in pop culture history, whether it be a has-been pop star, a modern-day icon of the music industry, an HBO prestige drama or a hyper-niche meme.

Filled with wacky, but actually good, fake pop songs (that are often earworms and sometimes tearjerkers) and quickfire comedy that recalls its natural predecessor 30 Rock, Meredith Scardino’s musical comedy is currently enjoying its resuscitation in the form of a third season and full relaunch on Netflix after being canceled by Peacock in 2022. The show follows a group of ex-girl group stars, Dawn (Sara Bareilles), Wickie (Renée Elise Goldsberry), Gloria (Paula Pell), and Summer (Busy Phillips), who reunite after 20 years to rekindle their group.

Girls5Eva makes no secret that it’s parodying the wild and hyper-specific landscape of the ’90s pop music industry, frequently cutting to clips of the girls on MTV, in conversation with Carson Daly, performing in increasingly ludicrous, sexist music videos, giving all-access tours of their bus, and even taking part in tasteless charity Christmas pop songs. For anyone who grew up watching the Spice Girls, NSYNC, S Club 7, and the Backstreet Boys, it’s all instantly recognizable stuff.

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But contemporary pop culture references also abound. The women constantly, hilariously, position themselves in contrast to giants of the 2020s industry, and everyone from J. Lo to Beyoncé to Taylor Swift to Ariana Grande to Miley Cyrus gets a mention. Dawn and her husband Scott (Daniel Breaker) are tired parents whose lives revolve around the latest hyped-up prestige drama. they’re the kind of people who can track their pregnancy around the finale date of The White Lotus. Gloria is the group’s resident crime podcast obsessive. As for Wickie, a larger-than-life diva, her dialogue is a sea of pop culture name drops.

With this unending stream of hidden and not-so hidden references, Girls5Eva positions itself as clever, knowing pop culture satire—a joyous homage to both ’90s nostalgia and the people who, against their better judgment, still get a kick out of it 20 years later.

Spice Girls

The influence of the Spice Girls is everywhere you look in Girls5Eva. In fact, the show’s catchy intro features the girl group dancing together to “Famous 5eva” on a set of steps, which instantly recalls the “Wannabe” music video. Plus, later in the show, we are treated to a glimpse of some behind-the-scenes, all-access-style footage of the band’s tour bus, in which Ashley (the fifth member of the group, who died falling off of an infinity pool) explains how each girl fits neatly into a type: There’s the fun one, the hot one, the fierce one, the chill one, and the hard-worker. It’s another nod to the structure that made the Spice Girls so distinctive.

“I think the one thing you can look at, especially the Spice Girls and how Girls5eva is reflective of them, is that it’s team-driven pop music,” said the show’s composer, Jeff Richmond, in a 2021 interview with Slate. Speaking of the show’s intro song, “Famous 5Eva,” he said, “Everybody gets to have their turn and sing their verse, and their verses come from their character, or at least the way we personified their characters. The sassy one, the hot one, the sporty one. And Girls5eva has the same template. They all get a verse, and they all get to come together for the big hooks. And we know that we have the one that can belt out and riff.”

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon

In the first of many cameos on the show, Jimmy Fallon appears in the pilot episode when the group makes its first comeback, alongside the (fake) rapper Lil Stinker, on The Tonight Show.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

A quick flashback shows Wickie's early aughts appearance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the hit game show that peaked in popularity around the turn of the millennium. (Of course, Wickie uses her appearance as a contestant as an opportunity to get some free personal publicity.)

The Americans

In the first of many references to cult TV shows, Dawn and Scott settle down to start the FX drama The Americans, which starred real-life partners Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Russian sleeper agents planted into 1980s suburban life where they pose as an American couple. Listen closely and you'll hear a few wonderful fake lines from the show coming from Dawn’s TV: “I know how we’ll get this secret: through sex,” and, “For this secret—sex again."

MTV Cribs

Ah, the wonderful world of ’90s MTV: not only a place for an endless stream of music videos, but also home to a number of iconic reality show—amongst them, Cribs, the show that gave us a glimpse into the lavish homes of the biggest A-listers, B-listers, and C-listers of the day. Naturally, fame-hungry Wickie made an appearance on the show, introducing fans to her all-white pop star palace, complete with glass piano, posters of her own projects, and a car that looks like a bed (“Miss Missy Elliot has a bed that looks like a Ferrari. Well, I do Missy one better”).

CNN’s Larry King Live

Back in the day, the girl group appeared on this famous interview show—after all, what pop star of the early aughts didn’t give a tell-all interview to Larry King?

The Property Brothers

One of Dawn’s go-to comfort shows, The Property Brothers first appears on her screen in Queens. Later, it takes on added significance when the group is signed by “Property Records,” a made-up record label owned by the titular brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott. Gloria eventually fights “the one with the beard” (apparently, his true calling was stage fighting) to get information about their upcoming tour.

John Slattery

The actor known for Mad Men and the Marvel franchise makes a cameo as himself alongside his wife and son, an only child in the city and so-called “New York Lonely Boy.” He provides some comfort for Dawn about Max, her own New York Lonely Boy.

Chernobyl

As a wise-beyond-his-years New York Lonely Boy, Max, Dawn’s son, is seen watching HBO’s Chernobyl. Listen out for a Russian-accented man saying the fake line, “The situation is stable. I insist it’s stable.”

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton (or rather, a wonderfully ridiculous wigged and padded Tina Fey) appears as an apparition for Dawn to guide her through her first experiences of songwriting.

The Office

Summer and Kev (Andrew Rannells as the closeted, floppy haired, ex-boy band member married to Summer) host a bizarre party in which they sing a song likening characters from the Bible to characters from The Office. “Judas is Dwight Schrute and Jesus is Darryl from the warehouse.” All very wholesome and strange.

“Oops!... I Did It Again” by Britney Spears

The iconic music video gets a nod in a flashback to Girls5Eva’s music video for “Space Boys,” which saw the group falling in love with boys… in space. “I always thought it’s funny that Britney Spears is on Mars and no one’s wearing a helmet,” Scardino told Slate. In the Girls5Eva version, Gloria insists on wearing a helmet for “verisimilitude”—but also to avoid having to kiss a boy without a protected barrier. Later, in Season 3, Taffy England wears the iconic red catsuit from the music video.

The Mask (1994)

After her Girls5Eva heyday, Wickie briefly appeared in The Maskical: The Musical, a cabaret show which, as she haughtily explains, was a “parody of the Jim Carrey oeuvre.”. Her excellent costume consisted of the unsettling green face and the famous yellow pantsuit—but with short-shorts, naturally.

Kim Kardashian's Skims

When Girls5Eva considers breaking up once again, Summer finds herself filming branded ads for “S’leaks,” a shapewear company that promises to contain “periods, urine, solids, shit sneezes, giggle squirts, and random slimes.” With the all-neutral color scheme of the ad, it’s giving Skims by Kim Kardashian. (Earlier in the season, the group also rejects a song about being “side chicks,” which is perhaps another very subtle nod to Kim K.)

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Tim Meadows

The actor, who co-starred with executive producer Fey in Saturday Night Live and Mean Girls, makes a cameo as one of Wickie’s matches on Raya.

MTV4’s The Grind’s Spring Break Slam Palace

This Spring Break special that the group appeared on back in the day may sound made up, but in 1997, the Spice Girls did actually perform on something called The Grind on MTV for Spring Break.

Joey Sasso from The Circle

A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo—Joey, “winner of the reality show The Circle,” spots Wickie on the street after seeing her on Raya.

The Undoing

The 2020 Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant HBO show gets a shout-out when, in Season 2, Wickie, wearing a silk green coat with purple fur trim, says that, yes, she is wearing the “Nicole Kidman The Undoing collection.”

Angelina Jolie’s leg

Explaining how she hides her one “bad foot,” Wickie demonstrates how she “poses with one leg out, Angelina-style,” in a reference to the meme that rose out of the 2012 Oscars, in which Jolie wore a black dress with a dramatic slit that showed off one long leg.

The “Disappointed” meme

Later in the same episode, Wickie references another meme, screaming out “disappointed,” à la Kevin Sorbo in Hercules. (Rumor has it, Sorbo accidentally read out a stage direction).

The Mickey Mouse Club

Many of the big pop stars of the early aughts got their start on the Disney Channel—namely, on the kids show The Mickey Mouse Club. In Girls5Eva, Summer didn’t quite make the cut. Instead, she appeared on the knock-off, Ricky Rats.

Succession

By Season 2, Dawn and Scott have apparently finished The Americans and have moved onto Business Throne, a spoof of Succession, which features “a son who always goes rogue” and such wonderful lines as, “You look like a fucking dildo that melted in a dishwasher. Happy birthday, son,” and, “If I could go back in time, I would have blasted on your mother's stomach. Fuck off, son.” As Dawn says eagerly as she switches the show on, “They’re so terrible in beautiful places.” She is all of us.

“Bad Art Friend”

In a reference to the viral 2021 article from The New York Times Magazine, Larry (Jonathan Hadary as the group’s sleazy ex-manager) calls Dawn a “bad art friend” for “stealing” his words. As Dawn notes, Larry (as so many others did at the time) is using the term incorrectly.

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Mario Cantone

And Just Like That’s Mario Cantone makes a cameo as the boy who once beat Wickie in an episode of Star Search.

Ghost (1990)

The much-parodied pottery scene from Ghost gets a quick reference when Wickie bonds with the “Lunch Lord” while using a chicken nugget processor.

The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

After seeing the much-hyped Beatles documentary, the group decides to do the “roof thing” to get some publicity. The reference even includes a re-creation of the 1960s-style woman saying, “Oh, I think it’s wonderful what they’re doing up there,” and goofy Liverpudlian police officers running towards the scene. (Things take a turn when it becomes clear the foursome have accidentally set up on a helicopter pad).

Ted Lasso

When a pregnant Dawn decides to go on tour leaving behind her husband and son, she worries, “Will America be as kind to a female Ted Lasso?” Later, a random man yells out at her, “Are you Ted Lassoing? No one will root for you.”

The Crown

In Season 3, Dawn and Scott have a new show: The Crown. (Girls5Eva has moved to Netflix and so, too, it seems, have Dawn and Scott.) This time, we don’t only hear snippets of the fake show-within-a-show; we also get to see a few clips. This version of The Crown seems to revolve largely around Prince Andrew’s relationship to his 72 stuffed animals.

The tell-all musician documentary

It’s a phenomenon—everyone from Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga has done one. And, of course, Wickie is getting in on the action, too. As she says, “Billie Eilish got $25 million for her doc. I can wear sweatshirts and have a brother.”

Footloose (1984)

During their makeshift, small town tour of America, Girls5Eva make a stop in Bomont, the town that inspired the 1984 musical Footloose, in which a town has been banned from rock ’n’ roll music and dancing. While in Bomont, Girls5Eva comes across the ultra-conservative state senator, Chuck Dennis, who bans the group from playing their risqué music. When they launch into their track “Big Pussy Energy,” he rings a giant bell and “declares a Footloose.”

Rebecca Lobo

The basketball player, whose career peaked with a national championship in 1995, makes a cameo as one of the guests at Taffy England’s birthday party, in which she brings her childhood bedroom posters to life. The cast of Bring It On (minus Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union) also get a mention.

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Step Up (2006)

In the 2000s, the Step Up movies had us in a chokehold. Fake R&B artist Torque starred in the fake Step Up movie, Step Up In Space.

Home Alone (1990)

When Wickie reconnects with Torque, she explains that he is giving her a massive Home Alone doorknob—“When Kevin heats up that door knob until it’s glowing red-hot? I have that for Torque,” she says. She continues to make increasingly bizarre references to Kevin for her other feelings throughout the episode—when she feels sick, “like Kevin when he’s home alone for the first time and he eats all of that ice cream,” or when she feels sad, “like Kevin when he missed his family.” Apparently, Wickie just rewatched Home Alone.

The “This is Hip Hop” viral video

Every few months, this inexplicable hip-hop dance tutorial from the ’90s will reappear on our Twitter feeds. Girls5Eva parodies the viral clip with a flashback to Dawn’s “rap dance” video.

“Late Night Talking” by Harry Styles

In Season 3, we meet Gray Holland, a British pop superstar. In a clip from his music video for the song “Sensitive Boy,” Gray is filmed from inside his cozy sweater, in a subtle reference to Harry’s under-the-sheets moment in “Late Night Talking.”

Love is Blind

In another little Netflix nod, we see a clip of Summer’s would-be reality dating show, Love is Smells, in which 15 singles (yes, an odd number) find love “using only smells.” Honestly? Would watch.

Richard Kind

A cameo from Richard Kind, the guy who is in everything but has thus far avoided first-name-on-the-call-sheet fame. “What you want is the medium time,” is his sage advice to Dawn—as opposed to making it the much-ballyhooed “big time.”

Sara Bareilles’ Live From the Hollywood Bowl

In a reference to, well, themselves, Girls5Eva performs at an empty Radio City. In 2021, the group did their first live performance during Bareilles’ live-streamed COVID-era concert at the Hollywood Bowl to a crowd of zero.

Stranger Things and Kate Bush

Season 3 ends with Wickie hearing her song “Yesternights” being used on the finale of The Crown. In a reference to Kate Bush's success after “Running Up That Hill” was used in Stranger Things, we hear a character say, “Prince Andrew is stuck in the fluff-side down. We need to keep him tethered to reality,” as “Yesternights” plays. In a teaser for what may come in a potential Season 4, Dawn says, “Oh my God, you’re going to Kate Bush.”

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