Aja Naomi King is back on broadcast, this time on NBC. She has joined a pilot for Grosse Pointe Garden Society, a series led by Melissa Fumero (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), AnnaSophia Robb, and Ben Rappaport. The series follows an eclectic quartet of a suburban gardening club who get caught up in murder and mischief as they try to add some thrill to their conventional lives. King will play Catherine, a mother of two who’s unhappy in her marriage. She’s a realtor and a member of the Garden Society who fights her loneliness with a juicy secret.
She joins already announced cast members Fumero, who plays Birdie; Robb, who plays Alice; and Rapaport, who plays Brett, completing the quartet as Catherine. Birdie is a successful author whose book ‘Digging for Gold: Dancing Through Divorce’ is on the bestseller list. She’s described as being entitled, rich, swathed in Chanel, a smoker, a drinker, self-destructive at times, toxic at others, qualities she uses to hide her real pain. Alice is a high school English teacher. She’s a dreamer, but her dreams come crashing down on her. Brett is described as being cool. So cool, in fact, that he put his dreams on hold so that his wife can pursue her law school dreams, but she’s now his ex-wife. He works as a manager in a garden store to take care of the kids.
Other regular cast members include Matthew Davis (Legacies) as Joel, a burned-out police officer who’s just looking for the final straw to break him into the dark side. Alexander Hodge plays Doug, Alice’s husband, whose dreams died long ago, just like his wife. Once dreaming about becoming a prominent artist, he now paints signs for local restaurants. The pilot was written by Jenna Bans (Good Girls) and Bill Krebs, with Maggie Kiley set to direct.
Aja Naomi King’s TV Career
King is best known for her role as Michaela Pratt in the ABC legal drama How To Get Away With Murder, which starred Viola Davis. The series ran for six seasons and was a key pillar for ABC alongside Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy. Lately, she starred alongside Brie Larson in Lessons In Chemistry for Apple TV+. She was nominated for several awards for the role. In films, she’s been seen in Sylvie’s Love, The 24th, and A Little White Lie.
Grosse Pointe Garden Society is the second pilot ordered on NBC, the first being The Hunting Party. The show does not have a premiere date yet. All seasons of How to Get Away With Murder are streaming now on Netflix in the U.S.
via Collider