‘The Cup’ stars reflect on ‘Sick & Twisted’ finale and hopes for season two

(Warning: MAJOR spoilers for the two-part finale below. Cup“This is nowhere”, parts 1 and 2.)

As cruel and chaotic as Cup already been through the first three weeks, it was still a shock to the system to see what happened to the Chenoweths and their neighbors in the two-part finale that arrived in Peacock this week.

In the final stretch of the series, the Hitman quickly made his way through the team, jumping from Valeria (Diani Rodriguez) to Nicholas (Luciano Leroux) and then to Meryl (Emily Bier), the closest person to Arlo (Caleb Dolden), who of course housed the Assassin’s ultimate target, the Harbinger.

By the time it had sunk into the mind of their daughter, Maggie (Yvonne Strahovski) and James (Scott Speedman) have already resigned themselves to the need to drown those who were hiding inside the Assassin – with the hope of later reviving them, free and free from any cosmic visitors within. So when Maggie came face to face with Meryl and realized what was happening, it was instantly devastating.

“I think that was probably the hardest thing I learned about playing Maggie. It’s so contrary to your instincts as a parent,” Strahovski told TV Insider about approaching the scene. “In this series, Maggie is mostly about her parental instincts and her desire to protect her children. And so when you’re faced with the dilemma that the only option is to drown your daughter, I mean, it’s unimaginable. This is unthinkable.”

Meanwhile, Speedman was a big fan of this creative solution. “I only liked it because at the end it was so nasty and perverted to force us to do it,” he said. “I thought it was so cool and unexpected. It was such a fun day of shooting, such a fun scene and such a fun place where the audience could say, “We’re going there.” We’re really, really going there.”

As shocking as it was, the couple ended up drowning Meryl in their bathtub – but it turned out to be a completely pointless exercise, as the Assassin was able to enter James’ body mid-fight once his mask was ripped off. So when Maggie finally tearfully revived Meryl, all that pain was for nothing.

For Speedman, flipping the Assassin switch at the very end of his performance as James was “difficult”, especially since many of his co-stars had already given their own interpretations of the nefarious body snatcher’s identity: “It was kind of a suit that suits you.” I had to try it on,” he said. “It was a lot of fun, but it wasn’t easy to get there.” However, James was by far the cruelest and directly threatened the family, making the final battle between him and Maggie even more devastating.

In the end, we are left with more questions than answers about what is really going on and what will happen next. But what we do know is that James was left to die in the deep freezer with the Assassin still in his head, and the remaining survivors were able to use some of the space goo to cross the death threshold. Then, right after that, Maggie, the kids, Reuben (Chaske Spencer), McNab (Rob Morgan) and Don (Boris McIver) were confronted by a new group of people armed with zip ties, ketamine and some other shimmery stuff. fluids and demand their full cooperation – which, of course, Maggie’s mother is not ready to do.

So what happens next? Well, whether we find out about this depends on the update. “I’m really looking forward to season two, and yes, the world will get bigger,” said showrunner Ian McCulloch. “We’ll always stay on that very basic level because… we need to feel what these characters feel and if we want to do better… independence Day or something like that – then you lose the sense of grounding and very personal (storytelling). We need to love these characters. We need to care about them because then we care about what happens to them. So we will always be at ground level. We will never get to 30,000 feet and look down and see the world as a whole, if you will.”

While the actors on the show don’t know for sure what will happen to their characters, many have their own working theories and hopes.

“For Meryl to literally have to come back to life, and then what happens to her father… I think that’s something they’ll always carry with them, and I’d be interested to see how that would affect the relationship, even just with their mom.” . It’s pretty traumatic,” Bjerre said.

McIver, whose character Don – the low-key best part of the series – was one of the few actors not to play dual roles, said he “would love” to play a resident in season two: “I wouldn’t care what personality wanted to come through me , I would take whatever Ian threw at me, but it would be great,” he said.

He also has some doubts about whether any male character will try to take the lead and run things instead of James, joking: “But yeah, you all start wondering about the hierarchy and then you think…”Look who’s got the big gun in his hands.”

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