Minx Season 2 Premiere Recap: Did Doug and Joyce Get the Bottom Dollar Band Back Together? Plus, Grade It!

“Joyce Prigger: World’s First Billionaire Pornographer,” reads a marquee at the top of Minx‘s Season 2 premiere. Sure, sex sells, but that seems a mite fast, no — especially given the way things stood at the close of Season 1?

As it turns out, yes. The signage, as well as a fur-clad Joyce working the red carpet at a film premiere, is part of a nightmare Doug is having at the start of the series’ sophomore run. (A run, by the way, that might not have happened had Starz not swooped in to revive the comedy after HBO Max killed it.) As Doug wakes in his office at Bottom Dollar, Tina informs him he was “calling out her name again.” He reassures her that his dreams about Joyce aren’t sexy; she shoots back that she’d prefer if they were.

While Doug is nearing rock bottom at Bottom Dollar — he gets turned down for a loan, an old industry friend refuses to help because “you got fancy” — Joyce is courting offers from all the major magazine publishers. Sure, Hearst, Meredith and Conde Nast all have the same, boring pitch made by old white guys, but they offer Minx a real shot at the big time… yet Joyce drags her heels in choosing a publishing partner. This frustrates Bambi and Richie, who you’ll recall both left Bottom Dollar to follow Joyce and who have set up the magazine’s temporary offices in the back room of Richie’s aunt’s bakery. They’re also taking other jobs to shore up the lack of a salary, which is how Joyce winds up acting as Richie’s assistant at a photo shoot at a rich older woman’s stately home.

The woman? Constance Papadopoulos (played by Weeds‘ Elizabeth Perkins), the world’s first female Chief Executive Officer, who ran her husband’s empire after his death but who was eventually forced out by the Board of Directors. Joyce immediately recognizes Constance and is starstruck, even after Constance chides her for not knowing how to do all the jobs — even photo assistant — at her company.

Meanwhile, Doug runs into problems with the distributor of the rest of Bottom Dollar’s magazines and thinks the best solution is to trade his car in for a truck so he and Tina can deliver them all themselves. She does not agree and urges him to call Joyce and hatch out a plan for Minx and beyond. “That’ll make me look weak!” he cries, disheveled and seriously contemplating a nationwide roadtrip to get Feet, Feet, Feet and the other mags into the hands of their readers. Is it any wonder that throughout the episode, Tina is surreptitiously studying, looking like she’s very much going to take that off-ramp to business school?

Joyce is just about to sign with one of the big publishers when Doug interrupts the meeting, intrigued by what he was able to glean about Constance after a conversation with Richie at the bakery. “You don’t want to do this. If you did, you would have signed weeks ago,” he says, arguing that the “dinosaurs” at Hearst & Co. will never understand their groundbreaking little erotic magazine. What’s more, he claims to have pitched Constance, and she’s only willing to entertain the conversation if Minx is part of the deal.

So Joyce bails on the suits and accompanies Doug to a get-together with Constance… which she quickly realizes is no formal meeting at all. Instead, he engineers things so they bump into the mogul at a dog show, where Doug pitches her hard and fast about extending Minx’s brand to events, merchandising and a global operation. Constance barely blinks before asking for a private moment with Joyce; once they’re alone, the older woman asks Joyce to pitch, herself. “I want to keep doing it our way,” Joyce says. “I want to keep fighting.” Constance is impressed and agrees to bankroll them. Then she wonders if they even need Doug, seeing as how “that kind of bravado is very risky.” But Joyce is resolute: “Minx is as much his success as it is mine.”

Then it’s done: Doug and Joyce, with Constance’s backing, are now in control of the magazine — though Joyce quickly points out that she has a 51 percent stake to his 49. Constance joins them in a celebration with the staff, and Doug pulls Tina aside to ask her not to leave the company in pursuit of a new degree. “The best is yet to come,” he promises.

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about Shelly and Bambi. When Bambi freaks out about Joyce’s inability to choose a publisher, she winds up at Shelly’s door, looking for comfort. The problem is, Shelly wants space; she’s even given up her role at Minx. She loudly tells Bambi that her marriage to Lenny is doing well (“We’re tearing through the Kama Sutra”) and makes it clear, despite talking in veiled references, that she and Bambi can never hook up again. Bambi says she understands. Then, they start kissing, right there in Shelly’s suburban breakfast nook. They move to the pantry for sex, and that’s where they’re basking in the afterglow when Lenny unexpectedly arrives home to change his shirt after a patient at his dental practice bled on him. Lenny is not at all suspicious of the two ladies, despite their incredibly freaked-out behavior; later, he notes how happy Shelly was while working at Minx and encourages her to to think about going back.

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Grade the premiere via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!