Steven Soderbergh has never been one to walk down the easy, expected path. When it was announced last summer that “The Girlfriend Experience” would be returning for a second season, it was with the understanding it Riley Keough would be moving on, and next batch of episodes would be built around a new lead character. Indeed, that’s happening, but the creatives behind the show are taking it one step further.
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Louisa Krause and Carmen Ejogo have been cast as the dual leads for season two, that will ambitiously track two totally different, parallel storylines. Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz will be back to write, direct and executive produce, as the new season will follow Erica Myles (played by Anna Friel), the Republican director of a super PAC, as she navigates the 2018 U.S. mid-term elections (timely!) and becomes involved a top flight escort (Krause). Meanwhile, Ejogo will play an escort who is forced to relocate to New Mexico and start from scratch, only to find she can’t run away from her past. Kerrigan will write and direct the D.C. storyline, with Seimetz handling the New Mexico portion.
Ambitious stuff, but exciting too. No word yet on when cameras will roll on the fourteen-episode second season, but I presume it’ll air in 2018 (provided we’re all still alive, and mid-term elections are still happening). [Deadline]