On Tuesday, June 23rd, Oprah Winfrey Network premiered the first episode of the final season of Greenleaf and drew 1.9 million viewers, per Deadline. It ranked as the No.1 cable telecast for women ages 25 to 54 for Tuesday night and ranked as the No.1 telecast in both cable and broadcast for all Black women. In addition to those achievements, the season 5 premiere was the most talked-about on social media on Tuesday night on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
On Twitter, many fans expressed their surprise and excitement in what happened in Tuesday’s episode. Here are a few examples:
According to Oprah Winfrey Network’s description of the show, Greenleaf “takes viewers into the unscrupulous world of the Greenleaf family and their sprawling Memphis megachurch, where scandalous secrets and lies are as numerous as the faithful. Born of the church, the Greenleaf family love and care for each other, but beneath the surface lies a den of iniquity – greed, adultery, sibling rivalry and conflicting values – that threatens to tear apart the very core of their faith that holds them together.”
Greenleaf stars Merle Dandridge (voice actor, Half-Life 2; voice actor, The Last of Us) as Grace Greenleaf, the estranged daughter of Bishop James Greenleaf, played by Keith David (They Live; voice actor, The Princess and the Frog), and Lady Mae Greenleaf, played by Lynn Whitfield (Madea’s Family Reunion, The Josephine Baker Story).
The show’s executive producers are Oprah Winfrey (The Oprah Winfrey Show, Lee Daniels’ The Butler), Craig Wright (writer, Lost; writer, Six Feet Under), Kriss Turner Towner (writer, Something New; writer, The Bernie Mac Show), and Clement Virgo (producer, The Book of Negroes; director, The Wire).
A spinoff of Greenleaf has been announced in May and is currently in development with Lionsgate.
You can watch the trailer for Season 5 of Greenleaf below: