[This story contains mild spoilers from the fist four episodes of season three of Harlem.]
Harlem is going out with a bang — or rather a baby bump — in its third and final season, which finds Camille (Meagan Good) pregnant by Ian (Tyler Lepley) who’s also in the process of starting a family with his childhood friend-turned-girlfriend Portia (Logan Browning).
The conundrum made for a dramatic season three opening as Camille struggled with whether she wanted to become a mother given her own mommy issues, and Ian remained firm in his resolve about becoming a dad.
“He was always articulate and unapologetic about wanting to be a specific type of father,” Lepley tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Fatherhood was always important to him. So throughout the mess, I still think it’s a beautiful thing to see him chase that and honor that,” adds the actor who knows audiences will have strong reactions to him possibly fathering children by two women at the same time. “He may be going about it in a different way or in the wrong timeline, but he’s still honoring something that we’ve always known him to speak on.”
It’s the honesty of how the show’s creator, Tracy Oliver, chose to have the characters deal with an unexpected pregnancy that Good most enjoyed about the experience of filming season three. “I loved that initially Camille was like, ‘I just don’t want to have kids,’ Good, who is engaged to Jonathan Majors, tells THR in the conversation below. “I feel like not enough women are allowed to just say that and to not be questioned like, ‘what’s wrong with you?’ Or, ‘what’s the trauma?’ It’s okay for that to just be how you feel.”
The cast themselves are feeling a variety of emotions over the Prime Video series coming to an end with season three (which began streaming Jan. 23 and concludes next week). Lepley, who’ll next be seen in season three of Starz’s P-Valley, fought back tears as he talked about the show’s conclusion.
“Sometimes we don’t get a chance to end things the way that we like in life and it creates a lot of resentment, but to be able to have the honor and the opportunity to say goodbye the right way, and to know that it was going to be the last season so that we could tie up some of these loose ends and be in this space one more time together and say goodbye the right way, it makes for a happy goodbye,” he says. “It’s kind of a triumphant goodbye.”
He will also miss the relationships. “Megan has been so gracious with showing me how she approaches the role, how she tackles the day, even how she treats everybody around as that caliber of an actress,” he said. “Even off set, we have similar upbringings, being Black in a white space and what that felt like. We talk a lot about things outside of acting. We’re both going into new engagements right now so we have feelings about that. She really has, as an actress, but also just as a human, developed into my sister.”
Below, Good and co-star Jerrie Johnson, who portrays Tye in the series, talk with THR about their reaction to the surprise motherhood storyline and what Harlem has meant to their careers.
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What was your reaction when you found out Camille would be the one going through a motherhood journey this season?
JERRIE JOHNSON I truly didn’t know. I guess we all found out at the same time when we got the scripts, and we were all mulling over who it could be. Filming season two, I was like, “Well, Grace [Byers], maybe it’ll be you, and maybe you could get pregnant in real life.” She didn’t know that she was pregnant at that time. I just assumed it would be a great opportunity, and then Quinn [Byers] could figure out what she wants to do. Camille made sense to me, but even for me, people who were like, “Well, I think it’s Tye because when that man came in…” and I said, “Nooo!”
MEAGAN GOOD I was surprised. I was like, “I’m pregnant? I’m pregnant? I’m pregnant!” Really? Okay.” Especially because I loved that initially Camille was like, “I just don’t want to have kids.” I feel like not enough women are allowed to just say that and to not be questioned like, “what’s wrong with you?” Or, “what’s the trauma?” It’s okay for that to just be how you feel.
But then I love the idea that while that may be true for someone, you also have someone else who is saying that because of what they’ve experienced and being able to explore that and peel back the layers of, particularly for Camille — what were her fears and what got her to that place where she landed. And the fact that there was never any pressure on her or judgment, there was never any, “you should want this” or “you should want to be a mother.” I felt it was a very healthy conversation that women are not allowed to have publicly, and they should be able to. Also, in talking about having the baby, saying really weird and morbid, inappropriate things potentially that are the conversations we really have behind closed doors and having sounding boards and people who love you unconditionally. I loved the journey.
We’re seeing a truly concerted effort from Tye to make better decisions, particularly when it comes to her love life, and to stand on that choice, despite temptation from Eva (Gail Bean). Jerrie, what have you enjoyed most about your character’s trajectory over these three seasons?
JOHNSON I enjoyed us watching her crack open, watching her throw stuff at the wall. Because she’s in tech, there’s a different type of thing that goes into that analytical mind. Things about numbers and how these things line up. She’s realizing she can’t use that same algorithm for her life so now she’s trying to figure out how she can do things differently. But she’s also realizing that there is something else that you need to bring forth before you can really get into the reason why these relationships aren’t working how you want them to work.
So I think she has released control but still is in control a little bit until she accepts this relationship dynamic, and then all bets are off. We’re seeing her in a place where she can’t just say, “fuck it” because now her emotions are involved, and probably for the first time in a real way since she was going to get engaged in that flashback episode in season one.
Tye isn’t necessarily team Ian and Camille, even with the pregnancy. For each of you individually, have you been rooting for these characters to have a happy ending together?
JOHNSON Honestly, in season two, I was like, “She’s gotta get with Jameson [Sullivan Jones], that will be fire.” Nothing against Ian, it just felt like an intellectual matchup that was really sexy and I was really feeling it. But with Ian and Camille, it’s actually that love thing, that undeniable thing that we’re all searching for, so having them win is like a confirmation of love winning. So I’m always going to be rooting for that.
GOOD Same. Like with Tye, knowing deep down as Camille that she does want love — she may not have needed it, but she wants it and she deserves it — seeing her fall for somebody who, from Camille’s perspective, can really match her and give to her and there’s no arrogance or ego, it’s a pouring into and something that you see Tye do for everybody else, someone’s doing for her now. And that’s challenging because love is supposed to make you better. Same thing for Quinn, wanting her to have that love, but realizing what she had realized in season two, which is you gotta love you first, and everything else will come at its proper time, and you don’t have to settle.
And yes, some of the decisions may look differently than what you thought they may, but sometimes that’s better. I think Camille also discovered that with career and love, and looking at Angie it’s the same thing, choosing you because at the end of the day when somebody comes in, if they choose you, then it’s okay for you to choose them because then you’re both being chosen. But if that person’s not choosing you, you have to choose you. You also have to realize we all have our own individual purposes, and we’ve got to walk that out first. Anybody that comes into that is going to uplift that and complement that, not try to take us away from that. So I’ve been rooting for everybody.
Meagan, you have called Harlem one of the best experiences of your career. How are you both feeling with the series coming to an end? What has it meant to each of your journeys as actresses?
JOHNSON it’s bittersweet. I’m excited for the next thing. I’m excited for me to really show my audience what else I can do. Since it’s been the first thing [I’ve done], I think people look at me as Tye sometimes so I’m excited for them to have a different look. But it’s bitter because these are my sisters, and I feel so at home, and I feel like the best version of myself. But because of that, I was able to build a foundation in this industry that was authentic. I’m not jaded in any way. I know things are going to happen either way, but there’s love here, there are authentic people here, and there is a community that feels like me, feels like home, it feels like those outsiders that didn’t really have a place, finding a place.
The bitter part is that it’s ending, and I feel like there’s more for these characters to say, but the sweet part is that we’ve already said so much and we’ve fallen in love as a community of performers and that is something that isn’t going to go away, whether we’re doing the show or not.
GOOD It’s definitely bittersweet because it is home, and it is family. And it’s not just family with these women, and my sisters and my brother, it’s family with the crew. It’s family with the producers. It really is such an incredible experience that can’t be recreated. [I’ve been] saying it’s good to leave before you’ve outstayed your welcome and you leave people going, “yeah!” instead of going past a point where people are just like, “Oh, yeah” [about your show], so I think that’s wonderful, but it is definitely bittersweet.
My prayer was always, “Lord, I want to work in a place where I’m excited to get up to go to work, where I’m excited to see the faces I’m going to work with, where my quality of life is supreme.” Those 15, 16 hours that you’re on set five days a week, you want that quality of life because you’re still living life. You’re not just going to work. You’re experiencing life those days. And I’ve had that. So you don’t know what’s next — the wonderful thing about our job is that it’s such a faith walk. So as Jerrie said, I’m excited to see what’s next because I do feel in a lot of ways, this is a reemergence for me in a different season and act of life. And to be able to play Camille, I got to do some things that people had not previously allowed me to do or knew that I could do. So now we’ll see what else I can do.
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The first four episodes of season three of Harlem are currently streaming on Prime Video.
English (US) ·