‘The Other Two’ Bosses: Can Brooke & Lance’s Relationship Withstand Her Existential Crisis?

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the first two episodes of The Other Two Season 3.]

The Other Two has returned, and Season 3 brings more of what we love about the show: humor, heart, and the inability for Chase’s (Case Walker) music career to go at all how he wants.

Among the changes glimpsed in the first two episodes, which pick up post-pandemic: Cary’s (Drew Tarver) movie, Night Nurse, is (finally) out, and he meets a method actor who stays in character for the whole shoot for every role; Brooke (Heléne Yorke) and Lance (Josh Segarra) are engaged, and now both out of the industry, with him, a nurse and her quitting; Pat (Molly Shannon) has her own network and is so famous she can’t go for a stroll in Central Park without too many protocols; Chase’s album came out on January 6; and Streeter (Ken Marino) is representing people he found on TikTok.

Season 3, for Brooke and Lance, is about figuring out if they can now make a relationship work, according to the creator, writer, and executive producer Sarah Schneider. Early on, “obviously Brooke is having her own sort of existential crisis about whether or not what she’s doing is enough or if she’s enough or if she’s a bad person or a good person, and Lance just happens to be as he always has sort of been the pinnacle of good,” she tells TV Insider. “And so he’s the perfect foil for her existential crisis. We really wanted to see what that would do to their relationship and if it could withstand.”

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But are they in the best position to make a relationship work because of where they are now? “Maybe. I think they have a good history together. I think they’ve been through a lot, and they know each other and love each other,” says creator, writer, and executive producer Chris Kelly. “I think Brooke is just really spinning out at the beginning of the season.” That’s because, unlike others during the pandemic, she didn’t have that moment of, “What am I doing? Do I want to do something different? Do I want to do something ‘better,’ more meaningful?”

However, that’s changed, with her now wondering why. “She feels self-conscious that she’s not good enough, that there’s something broken in her: ‘Why did I not want to do that? Why do I want to do this thing that is more shallow?'” he continues. “It makes her spin out in general, let alone [that] the personification of goodness is sleeping in her bed every night. Maybe Brooke [has] to work through her own s**t before she can be a good participant in their relationship.”

Adds Schneider, “We’ve always said they are meant to be, but in this season only if Brooke can get out of her own way, basically.”

As Kelly points out, Lance was “a doofus” when we first met him; it wasn’t until Season 2 that he started getting serious about fashion. “I think Brooke found that sexy and they both were excited that they were growing up and thriving together and growing into real adults and not just being these stunted children. And so I think Brooke thought of them as peas in a pod. ‘We did it. We used to be losers, and now we did it, and we’re the same, and we are done,'” he explains. “And then he pivoted hard. And so I think that would throw her for a loop, too.”

Greg Endries/HBO Max

Meanwhile, things might not have gone as Chase had hoped when it came to releasing his new music, but he is “excited” for people to see him as an adult now that he’s 18, according to Walker. “He’s getting to take a little bit more control. Obviously, he is older, and he’s a little bit more aware of who he is and what people are thinking of him, and what his team thinks of him. So I think he’s kind of pursuing this opportunity of, ‘I know I can do this now. I can push for this.'”

We’ll also see him figuring out “what he wants out of life” as well as some things coming up in his personal (and love) life, the actor previews. “Also, just his relationships, [specifically] his awareness of his relationships with people. [For example], what Streeter thinks of him, like ‘Are you actually my manager?'”

But will he get to sing again” “I hope he does,” Walker shares. “He wants to sing again, so we’ll have to see.”

Considering how that’s gone in the past? Well, at least there would be a catchy new song.

The Other Two, Thursdays, HBO Max