The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

acadet@tribunemedia.net

THE CAST and crew of the Bahamas’ first soap opera, “Gippie’s Kingdom”, will celebrate their unforgettable season two experience as they view the final episode tomorrow night at the Conch N’ Kalik Bar and Grill Downtown Nassau.

The show airs at 9pm on ZNS, but the “Gippie’s Kingdom” family is inviting Bahamians to join them in gearing up to watch the 12th and final episode of the season.

Travon Patton, one of the show’s producers, recalled that up until recently people doubted they would be able to pull off making a Bahamian-made drama series.

Not only did the show’s achievements change people’s minds, but “Gippie’s Kingdom” also surpassed the expectations of its creators.

“There is a merging group of people interested in filmmaking and we just appreciate Bahamians for being with us all the way. When we tried to come out with this season we thought about listening to what some of our audience members were saying. They wanted it to be longer because they enjoyed the first season so much. Instead of eight episodes, we went to 12 episodes this time around. We have also improved our visual look and audio. We had some difficulties in audio in the last season and we have been able to clear that up,” Travon told Tribune Arts and Entertainment.

The producer said they received great feedback this season, and young persons in particular have really responded on social media, expressing their love the show.

“We definitely wanted to up the soap opera feel to this season, so we added a little more drama and spice into the plot line. Even the older persons, they jot the episodes down on their calendars to keep up with the show. People approached me giving me their thoughts and positive words on several episodes. We have been really surprised by how well it has done,” said Travon.
He said season two opened with the Junior, the son of the main character, Everett Harrison “Gippie” Gibson, waking up from a coma.

If viewers faithfully watched season one, they were aware of Junior having being shot while locking up his pharmacy. Junior was in a coma for most of season two, until he awoke in the last episode.

“While he was in a coma, his fianc�e found out that he was cheating on her with a ‘jungaliss’. The woman that he was cheating on her with ended up being attacked and killed by a boyfriend that was on bail from jail. That led to so many plot lines and controversy that when he woke up, he woke up to this world of complete confusion,” Travon said.

“He woke up with his father being in the hospital, his fianc�e having left him for his best friend, the jungaliss murdered, and now he has a son. This is all shocking to him and he is wondering why this has happened to him.”

Travon said there are a lot of storylines that they are trying to bring to a close in tomorrow’s season finale. For example, the character of the drug dealer is now confronting huge problems which he is trying to fix and viewers can look forward to see what happens on that front.

“We will also see what happens with Gippie as he is being pursued by Ms Bullard, a lady from church who really wants him to marry her. We will also see what happens with Donovan and Monique. He has separated himself from her and kicked her out of the house. Now he really started to feel what it is like to be away from her. He wants her back, but now she is having second thoughts because she is now seeing the doctor who was tending to both her brother and her dad,” Travon said.

“We are seeing a lot of plot lines intersect and we are seeing some conclusions to those plot lines. It is going to be a good episode and it is going to close out the season well. This episode will also give a hint at what we can expect in season three.”

Travon said they want to keep “Gippie’s Kingdom” going on as long as they possibly can. The producers, he said, want to take the show to the rest of Caribbean, South and North American, Canadian and European audiences. Travon said they are willing to take it everywhere they can to shine a light on Bahamian storytelling.

“We didn’t do as well sponsorship wise compared to season one, and we see that as a reflection of the hard economic times. We never made that the reasoning for anything because the intention for the show is to produce Bahamian drama. In season one, we used what we had to create it. In some cases we didn’t have a professional makeup person so we ended up learning it ourselves. We didn’t have the funds to make season one, but we made it anyway, and that is the approach we took with season two. We didn’t do as well with sponsorship, but either way we are going to do a season three,” Travon said.