Run the World, Starz’s smash comedy is getting a talent boost ahead of its second season. Tika Sumpter (Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Mixed-ish), Comedian CP (Detroiters, Ole Bud’s Anu Football Weekly), and Isha Blaaker (A Madea’s Homecoming, The Flight Attendant) join the show as recurring cast members for its sophomore season. Cree Summer (Better Things, Queen Sugar) and Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins have been revealed as guest stars for Starz (Dear White People, Bad Hair). There is currently no release date planned for the new season.
Run the World is one of the standouts shows to emerge from Starz’s #TakeTheLead campaign, which aims to spotlight diverse stories and creatives for a wide range of underserved audiences in media, particularly women. The series, created by Boomerang writer Leigh Davenport, depicts a close-knit, smart, and humorous friend group of thirty-something Black women living it up in Harlem.
Season 2 of Run The World
 Cast
Amber Stevens West plays Whitney Green, a banker and people-pleaser who is organizing her wedding to her fiance, and Ola Andrea Bordeaux plays Ella McFair, a writer in her early 30s who is adjusting to her new position at the website Hot Tea Digest after a failed debut book release.
Tosin Morohunfola as Olabisi “Ola” Adeyemo, Whitney’s fiance, Stephen Bishop as Matthew Powell, a college professor, single father to his little daughter Amari, and Sondi’s lover and thesis adviser Erika Alexander as Barb, Ella’s supervisor at the entertainment website Hot Tea Digest
Anderson is played by Nick Sagar
Ellie Reine plays Amari Powell, Matthew’s little daughter Tika Sumpter plays Amari’s biological mother, and comedian CP plays Preston Thurgood. Whitney’s former business school opponent, Philip Houston, is played by Isha Blaaker.
Season 2 of Run The World
Plot
The show is an updated version of and a tribute to Sex and the City (Ella refers to her boyfriend Anderson as Big, but Sondi tells her that the famous character was tall, rich, and had a driver), yet it has its own flavor and atmosphere. It contains some irreverent conversation and writing, as well as regular and not-so-subtle depictions of racism and feminism. Renee characterizes the American workplace as a “CC and BCC kind of passive-aggressive culture” in which Black people are invisible.
Run The World Season 2
When Will It Be Released?
We have some details on the second installment. Season 2’s release date has yet to be announced by Starz, but it appears that it will be shortly.
Development
Starz ordered Run the World, a half-hour comedy pilot created and written by Boomerang writer Leigh Davenport, on October 14, 2019.
“A love letter to Black women and a love letter to Harlem,” she said of the series. Davenport based the series on her time in Harlem, where she worked in the media for 12 years. She wants the series to depict a group of well-rounded, caring friends to contrast with the “skewed” images of Black womanhood on popular reality television shows. With no prior screenplay expertise, she penned the script for Run the World while living in Harlem and revised it for a decade.
Casting
Amber Stevens West and Bresha Webb were cast as season regulars on October 14, 2019.
On October 31, 2019, the casting of additional lead cast members Corbin Reid, Stephen Bishop, and Andrea Bordeaux was revealed.
On November 2, 2020, Erika Alexander, who appeared in Bowser’s series Living Single, was revealed as a recurring cast member.
On December 1, 2020, another main cast member Tosin Morohunfola, recurring cast members Nick Sagar and Jay Walker, and guest Tonya Pinkins were announced.
Rosie O’Donnell was cast as a therapist but her casting was not revealed until the show’s reviews were released.
Filming
The project began filming on October 29, 2020, on location in Harlem and other parts of New York City.
Reactions have been mixed
“Run the World” tells timeless stories with a colorful twist about marital dynamics and women facing their thirties with a thrill of apprehension and determination.”
Critics recognised similarities to the format of Sex and the City as a sitcom centered on a group of trendy friends in New York, but “that’s where the similarities end,” according to Kellie Carter Jackson of the New York Times.
