'Sweet Magnolias' Finds Its Way Back To The Magic Of The First Season

When the Netflix series premiered in 2020, we all needed some comfort. Season 4's timing is perfect, too.

Sometimes, you just need to “pour it out” with close friends and a pitcher of margaritas. That was especially true when Netflix’s “Sweet Magnolias” first aired in May 2020 when we’d all been socially isolating and sheltering in place just long enough to forget what it was like before COVID, before we could only see our friends in Zoom boxes or standing 6 feet apart.

When the South Carolina-set show based on the books by Sherryl Woods first premiered, I was still mourning the loss of my mom to cancer. That fresh grief exacerbated the loneliness and isolation I felt while taking care of a 6-week-old and a 21-month-old while my husband worked from home, and I ached for normalcy. I wished that I could escape the crying and tantrums and endless diaper changes for a night away from home to “pour it out” (literally or metaphorically) with a close friend.

But, I couldn’t. Instead, I watched the show’s three best friends — Maddie (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Helen (Heather Headley) and Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott) — meet for their weekly margarita night, and immersed myself in the romances and family dramas they navigated while taking care of each other.

While the small-town setting and dialogue was often filled with stereotypical southern phrases and overly saccharine exchanges, the sweetness of the show was comforting at a time when I needed to be taken care of. I felt the same way about the show’s second season, which was a bright spot during the winter of 2022.

However, by the third season, I wondered if the show had lost its charm. That season, the show shifted from a gentle soap opera to an almost unwatchable mess. The exchanges between characters were too emotionally wrought, the plot was meandering, and the stakes were so low that I almost didn’t finish watching it. Also, as someone who lives in Memphis, I didn’t know if I could get past the caricature of the South that the show had become.