Kindred Spirits

The family at the center of OWN’s church drama Greenleaf are in one holy mess. Can they find the light? Lynn Whitfield, Oprah Winfrey and Merle Dandridge preview Season 2

- Michael Logan

ALL HELL IS breaking loose in the house of the Lord! OWN’s flagship series, Greenleaf—a glamorous, sin-packed melodrama about a black mega church in Memphis—ended its premiere season with family pedophile Uncle Mac (GregAlan Williams) getting out of jail by incriminating his revered brother-in-law, Bishop Greenleaf (Keith David), for arson and manslaughter. Now the dominoes fall.

When the show returns, three months have passed and the bishop is enmeshed in scandal, church profits are plummeting, and sister-in-law Mavis (Oprah Winfrey) has become a pill-popping drunk. But the bishop’s highfalutin wife, Lady Mae (Lynn Whitfield), remains in deep denial, refusing to acknowledge that she knew Mac molested her daughter Faith— a horrifying situation that led to the girl’s suicide.

Then there’s eldest daughter Grace (Merle Dandridge), the avenging angel who exposed Mac and got him arrested. “Grace came back to town to set things right in her dysfunctional family,” says series creator Craig Wright. “But she’s like a universal acid that cuts through everything. All this chaos can betraced directly back to her.” And how’s this for irony? With the bishop sidelined, it’s now up to Grace—who has big issues with God—to save the church she intended to bring down. “Grace is our Michael Corleone,” says executive producer Clement Virgo. “She wanted nothing to do with the Greenleafs, but now that the family is in crisis, she’s been pulled back in.”