Netflix is following through on its promise to be more ruthless when it comes to killing off shows it doesn’t think are working, and Girlboss is one of the victims. Few people are expected to miss it.
Sophia Amoruso, founder of Nasty Gal and the show’s inspiration, pretended to be relieved by the news in a series of Instagram stories:
“So that Netflix series about my life got canceled. While I’m proud of the work we did, I’m looking forward to controlling my narrative from here on out. It was a good show, and I was privileged to work with incredible talent, but living my life as a caricature was hard even if only for two months. Yes, I can be difficult. No, I’m not a dick. No, someone named Shane never cheated on me. It will be nice to someday tell the story of what’s happened in the last few years. Ppl read the headline, not the correction, I’ve learned.”
The series was based on Amoruso’s book of the same name, a rags to riches memoir that begins with a scrappy Amoruso selling clothes on eBay before parlaying that passion into Nasty Gal, a multi-million empire that experienced its ignoble fall amid some rather dark allegations of employee mistreatment.
A story this knotty definitely had the potential for great TV, but ultimately, the actual product failed to resonate with either viewers or critics. As Variety put it:
“‘Girlboss’ so strangely renders its goals that it appears to be stuck in its own striving, making for an oddly perfunctory journey. Much like Sophia Amoruso in 2006, ‘Girlboss’ does not seem to know what it wants to be when it grows up. And while the potential is thrilling, it’s messy, too.”
Netflix also ended Baz Luhrman’s visually arresting The Get Down, as well as Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s sci-fi drama Sense8. Girlboss made sense for the chopping block—a useful rule of thumb is that if you’re going to make another show about an entitled white millennial, it’d better be damn good—but you do have to wonder what logic is keeping Fuller House in the rotation. Here’s my take: Cut whatever you want, but if Chewing Gum goes anywhere, you’ll be hearing from my lawyers.