Harlem’s Trailer for Season Two Is Gay as Hell, So Black, and a Delight

Harlem Season Two: A group of four Black women are walking down the streets of Harlem and smiling

I do appreciate how this visually says “we are a Black gay Sex and the City” without using words.

The days are short, the nights are long, and the air is freezing. Winter’s the perfect time for comfort television (I know, this is not “new” news) and by that measure, there’s no better pure “comfort television” than Harlem — which is returning for its second season on February 3rd, on Prime Video.

If you missed the first season of Harlem, it follows four single 30something friends as they navigate careers and love and sex in New York, and OK! It’s not particularly recreating the wheel at face value (is that not also true of all great comfort TV?), but it has delightfully warm and believable friendships at its root, which is exactly what you want when you’re looking for how to pass time underneath a blanket with good take out. Meagan Good, with her decades of rom-com experience, is the leader of the crew. For our gay purposes there’s also Jerrie Johnson’s Tye — a stem lesbian who… we’ll say… makes good use of her sex dating time — and Grace Byers (Boo Boo Kitty, for anyone who remembers Empire) as Quinn, who came out as bisexual in my favorite slow burn arc of the first season.

Now that you’re all caught up! The trailer for Season Two does a hat trick — it’s funny and gay as hell, in a Black ass show about friendship that’s pulling from the direct lineage of Living Single and Girlfriends (aht! aht! aht! You thought I was going to say Sex and the City, didn’t you? We have our own lineage, thankyouverymuch!).

From Quinn making her own Pride outfit and immediately getting clowned by her friends, to Tye getting called out online for her hoe activities and hoe tendencies (hoes are your friends, and hoes are your enemies — word to Ludacris), Tye taking Quinn to a sex toy store (“that’s not where those go”), to the eight orgasms zinger… I clocked more gay jokes — perfectly executed, I might add — in these two minutes than most comedies do in a year.

And that’s all before theeee Rachel True, of The Craft fame, makes a cameo.

I can’t wait for February.

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

8 Comments

  3. I don’t know how a trailer can be THIS funny! Quinn’s outfit, that Moesha line aha. Heck, I’m even into the het drama. Also, has anyone actually seen Juani Feliz’s Instagram and her cute wife/life? I love seeing her in this show. And you’re right Carmen, this is straight from Girlfriends and Living Single but doesn’t it feel so good when you actually have queer characters at the centre of all that Blackness? It’s the reason why I rode for Insecure but wasn’t in love with it. Come through February!

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    • I didn’t even know Juani Feliz was gay in real life—but that explains how it was clear from the second she walked on screen that her character was gonna change Quinn’s life (and keep me tuning in).

      Reply to This Comment

      • Yesss! The first moment she walked on screen she pinged and I thought her character had great chemistry with Quinn, but I just thought it was my gay ass looking through my thick gay ass glasses and was just seeing what I wished. I didn’t think they would actually go there with Quinn until they actually did and I was like… wait, I wasn’t just wishing/imagining/crack shipping them??

        Reply to This Comment

  5. Sooo excited for s2! It is on my list of most anticipated shows coming back for the year. Loved s1. Just re-watched it to prepare myself for the new season and it’s still just as funny and charming as the first viewing.

    Quinn is my favorite but I loved all them.

    I love that the show has 2 of the 4 main characters exploring queer stories. That was such a pleasant surprise during the first season.

    I hope it does well this season! These streaming services make me nervous as hell when it comes to the smaller beloved series.

    Looking forward to AS coverage for the show!

    Reply to This Comment

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