‘The Last Thing He Told Me’: Rita Wilson Breaks Down Hannah & Carol’s Reunion

Rita Wilson made her debut on The Last Thing He Told Me during Friday’s (March 6) episode. Her Season 2 character was introduced when Hannah (Jennifer Garner) and Bailey (Angourie Rice) were advised by Quinn Favreau (Judy Greer) to go somewhere where no one would find them.

Hannah chose the place she knew no one would ever look for her: her estranged mother Carol’s (Wilson) house in Arizona. In Season 1, we learned that Hannah was raised by her grandfather after Carol abandoned her to chase a life with Hannah’s father. Season 2 gave more context to how their relationship became so strained. (Warning: Spoilers for Episode 3 of The Last Thing He Told Me Season 2 below).

A flashback scene revealed that Carol tried to come back into Hannah’s life when Hannah was a teenager, but Hannah refused to let her in. It was evident just how hurt Hannah was by her mother’s abandonment. But during their present-day reunion, she started to warm up to her mom when she learned that Carol, a photographer, had to sell her prints under Hannah’s dad’s name because they were worth much more that way.

“For me, the character was so interesting because she was a complex person who made choices in her life that would not be choices that are traditionally accepted. You don’t abandon a child, you don’t leave a child,” Wilson tells TV Insider. “But as I started to explore the character, it felt to me that she was very, very young when she had her child. She was an artist herself, and she was actually the more talented between her and her husband, and her husband was putting his name on her works and selling her art as his own. That was very interesting to me and compelling because of how difficult it is sometimes for us to find our voices, as artists, as women, as citizens of the world, to feel courageous enough to say what we really want.”

During the episode, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Hannah’s husband and Bailey’s father, arrived in Arizona after tracking the women via a locket that he dropped in Hannah’s pocket when he unexpectedly showed up at her art show in Episode 1. Owen had been in hiding for five years to protect Hannah and Bailey from the Campano family, who wanted him dead, but reunited with them amid his efforts to take down his enemies, which would allow him to come out of hiding for good.

By the end of Episode 3, Owen, Hannah, and Bailey left Arizona when they realized they had been tracked down. Before they parted ways, though, Hannah admitted to her mother, “I spent almost every day of my childhood watching the door for you, waiting for you to come back, even though I knew you never would. I would like to be the kind of person who could get over that, I really would. But I don’t know if I can,” and Carol responded, “Well, it’s awful big of you to try. And I’ll be here waiting, just in case you change your mind.”

Below, Wilson breaks down the reunion between Hannah and Carol and reveals how she thinks they move forward.

Apple TV

How did this role come about for you?

Rita Wilson: It came about as something that was out there, that this was a possibility. I’d heard things people said, like I’m not old enough to play the role, and it wouldn’t be believable. Frankly, I don’t think anyone’s seen me do anything quite like this, so it was this idea of … people have their own opinions of who’s right for a role, and everybody has somebody in their heads, but Jennifer Garner was actually a supporter of the idea, which I think is fantastic. Women supporting women and that sort of thing. It was such a huge compliment because I think Jennifer has really great taste.

Carol hasn’t seen Hannah in years. She doesn’t know this new family she’s built with Bailey and Owen. So why was she so willing to let them stay with her, no questions asked?

I think it’s an acceptance of what she did and the choices she madem and that anything that looks like an opening, even the slightest sliver of light, is something she’s going to embrace. But at the same time, she’s giving space. I don’t think that Carol feels entitled at all to have any relationship with her daughter, so the fact that she’s there is massive. It might feel small, but it’s massive.

Do you think Carol had given up hope of reconciliation before this moment?

I don’t think a mother ever gives up hope.

When she told Hannah the story about her photography, it kind of humanized her to Hannah. Why was that something she had never shared before? Was it simply because Hannah wouldn’t let her in?

You see throughout the episodes and flashbacks that Carol made attempts, and she was just not welcomed. There wasn’t space for her at all to be in Hannah’s life, and that is an acceptance of a massive consequence of the choice that she made. I don’t think she thought it would be like that when she made that choice, but that’s exactly what happened. So over the course of the years, I think she tries to explain, she tries to meet up with her and say, “I want you to have this [photo],” and Hannah’s like, “Get out of here.” I mean, this was a very angry young woman.

And I can understand that. I can understand it on some level. That’s such a deep, deep wound. It’s different if somebody dies and you say, “Well they’re dead,” and you can remember the good things. But when you know someone is out there that is your mother that brought you into this world, and you don’t have a relationship with her, both of them are suffering from it.

Carol and Bailey seemed to really take to each other very quickly in a short amount of time. Why do you think they were able to connect so easily?

They don’t have the history, and they don’t have the baggage. Bailey’s looking at this woman like, she’s open, she’s present, she’s here, and she’s letting us stay here. I think she’s reconciling what she’s heard about Carol from Hannah to who she actually has in front of her, and there’s no judgment there.

Where do you think Hannah and Carol go from here? The way they left it in that scene, things seemed OK, but will they have a relationship moving forward?

I was really pitching for Carol to have an art show in Paris and run into Hannah on the Pont Neuf. Like, what are you doing here?! Just to weasel my way into a Paris trip [laughs].

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I don’t know. I would love to explore more of that relationship and more of that coming together just from an artistic, artist-to-artist standpoint. Because Hannah is also an artist. She and Carol have more in common than they think. Hannah has chosen not to have children, which is interesting, but she has a daughter through her marriage, and she’s a great mother and a wonderful person for Bailey, so I think it would be interesting to see where that relationship goes in terms of it slowly evolving and emerging in a way that’s deeper and gives Hannah some closure.

The Last Thing He Told Me, Season 2, Fridays, Apple TV