Starz ‘Girlfriend Experience’ Teases Dual Storylines in First Season 2 Trailer

Forget everything you think you know about The Girlfriend Experience – from Starz’s first season, to the original Steven Soderbergh film. The first trailer for Season 2 esoterically teases two new disparate stories for the November return.

In addition to an upcoming premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, The Girlfriend Experience released a first trailer for its reinvented season with stars Anna Friel, Louisa Krause and Carmen Ejogo. Steven Soderbergh returns to executive produce with Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz serving as showrunners, writers and directors for two parallel storylines.

Set in both Washington D.C. and New Mexico, the series has an extended synopsis for either side:

Kerrigan’s storyline is set against the backdrop of the corrupting influence of dark money in the upcoming 2018 U.S. mid-term elections, where everything and everyone has a price, the second season tracks an unexpected and complex relationship between Erica Myles (Friel), a commanding and strong-willed finance director of a Republican super PAC, and Anna Garner (Krause), a confident and intelligent GFE provider at the top of her game. Under intense pressure to deliver on her super PAC fundraising goals, Erica meets Anna and enlists her help in blackmailing a high-powered dark money fundraiser, in order to gain access to his secret donor network. After their initial exchange, Erica and Anna fall into a complicated sexual relationship, marked by an exploration of vulnerability, dominance and submission. A relationship that changes the trajectory of Erica’s personal and professional lives and takes Anna into new emotional territory.

Seimetz’s storyline follows Bria Jones (Ejogo), a former high-end escort who enters the Witness Protection Program in order to escape her abusive relationship. After being torn from her upscale lifestyle, Bria and her estranged step-daughter are relocated to New Mexico where they are overseen by a commanding US Marshal, Ian Olsen (Tunde Adebimpe). Despite orders to stay low, Bria begins to revive her career as a sex worker, still enraptured by the allure of precarious relationships and lavish gifts. Bria’s moonlighting only becomes more complicated when it threatens to ensnare her new identity, her step-daughter, and the government official put in charge of her well-being. Bria quickly realizes she not only has to protect herself from her domineering ex but the very people who are supposed to be protecting her. Bria is forced to take matters into her own hands as she gambles not only her own safety but the people around her in a bid to regain the life she once had.

The official Starz premiere will take place on Sunday, November 5, so stay tuned for the latest on The Girlfriend Experience Season 2.