Did you know that The Game was a spinoff of Girlfriends?
Melanie from The Game and Joan from Girlfriends are cousins.
Yeah, we're jumping right into it because if you watched both series, you could definitely tell that the characters were related.
Many know that The Game is a spinoff of Girlfriends. Season six, episode 18 of Girlfriends, titled "The Game," serves as a pilot episode for Tia Mowry's series, and it opens with Joan and Melanie sitting in a press/family box at the Sabers football stadium.
Joan is trying to convince Melanie that giving up Johns Hopkins University for a San Diego medical college is insane. What was Melanie's sole reason not to attend her dream school? Her boyfriend, Derwin. A wide receiver, Derwin got drafted by the Sabers and had to move to San Diego. A long-distance relationship must've not been an option because Melanie decided to follow him and put her medical dreams second.
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Her parents took her car in retaliation for choosing a guy over the top medical school in the country. They also decided they wouldn't pay her tuition since she chose a school with fewer opportunities in San Diego to support Derwin.
The entire episode is a "Welcome to the league, rook!" moment for Melanie as she realizes that being the spouse of a professional athlete is difficult. She learns that she has to join a group called "The Sunbeams," which are the wives and girlfriends of the players. This takes up a chunk of the spouse's time and adds significant pressure to her life. Obviously, this means less time for studying.
Melanie also learned about the different types of "groupies" who looked for players to "trap." She eventually became jealous of Derwin's image consultant Dionne, whom Tasha Mack called "A groupie with a career. The worst type."
Melanie continuously reminds Derwin throughout the series that she "gave up Johns Hopkins" for him when they argued. The character acted a lot like her cousin Joan Clayton on Girlfriends, who also centered her life around the men she was dating.
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