Freeform’s “The Bold Type” is besting TV’s long plagued sophomore slump.
The cable dramedy, airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m., tackles a range of topics including gun ownership, white privilege and #MeToo. At the show’s core three twenty-something go-getters — writer Jane Sloan (Katie Stevens), fashion assistant Sutton Brady (Meghann Fahy) and social media maven Kat Edison (Aisha Dee) — all navigate life one day at a time, often inside the walls of women’s glossy magazine Scarlet. (Former Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles is an executive producer and source of inspiration for the series.)
“When I read the pilot script, I think the thing that attracted me most was just the female friendships. That was a really special, unique story they were building between the three girls,” Fahy, 28, tells The Post.
In the first season, Stevens’ Jane leaves behind her Scarlet safety net to embrace the unknown at a new job. She also finds her voice, writing a powerful piece about Scarlet editor-in-chief Jacqueline Carlyle (Melora Hardin), a sexual assault survivor.
Meghann FahyFreeform“I think it’s important that we not only touch upon timely topics, but we touch on things that are kind of unspoken about,” says Stevens, 25.
“This season, we’re going to see how Jane deals with having the BRCA gene [which can increase the risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers] and how that dictates what she wants moving forward in her relationships,” she says.
Dee’s Kat is one half of the show’s most dynamic pairings, dating Muslim photographer Adena El Amin (Nikohl Boosheri).
”We get to see a queer character explore her queerness in adulthood. Often we see it for teenagers, but it’s not often you get to see someone in their twenties who’s already been around and kind of discover something new about themselves,” says Dee, 24.
The couple also faced barriers with the possibility of Adena being deported from the U.S., making Dee think about loved ones in her native Australia.
“Most of my family is on the other side of the world,” she says. “We have FaceTime and all of these things, but it’s really not the same as being able to be with that person, so I fully identified with Kat’s struggle and Adena’s struggle.”
Where “The Bold Type” also succeeds is accurately portraying personal pitfalls and professional failures, without sugarcoating life’s hardships.
“We try not to tie everything up in a bow because life isn’t that way, and something I think [the show] does pretty well is showing how the girls mess up, and what’s really important is how do you pick yourself up from that? How do you recover? The truth of someone’s character is how they decide to move forward after taking a hit,” Fahy says.
As for what the remainder of Season 2 has in store for “The Bold Face”s powerhouse trio, the glass ceiling isn’t the limit.
“I think you’re going to see more of the three girls helping each other out, really doing it as a team, which is really art imitating life,” Dee says.
