‘Phony’ Is Making You Question Connie Britton — And That’s Exactly the Plan

Something is wrong with Ellen Cooke (Connie Britton) in Hulu’s Phony. At least, that’s what her son Sonny (Sam Nivola) believes. After a car accident, Sonny wakes up in the hospital to discover that his mother is no longer the woman he remembers. She looks familiar, but something is slightly off. And the audience can see the difference, too. Warning: Spoilers ahead for Phony Episodes 1 and 2. 

Before the accident, Sonny had a pretty good life. A junior at Delby High School, he enjoyed a close relationship with his mother, the school’s principal. It was just the two of them. They even shared a secret code, squeezing each other’s shoulders to say “I love you.”

However, things weren’t perfect. Ellen wasn’t fond of Sonny’s girlfriend, Chloe (Mahaela Park), or his plans to attend UC Berkeley. Then Sonny and Ellen argued about his independence, accusing her of fearing lost control. Later, while driving to meet Chloe, Sonny called Ellen, only for his car to skid off a bridge and plunge into the water.

Disney/David Astorga

When Sonny woke up in the hospital a week later, Chloe and his best friend Vogel (Maliq Johnson) were waiting. But when his mother arrived, Sonny was horrified. The woman standing before him wasn’t Ellen. She resembled his mother, but her face was different, like a slightly inaccurate copy of Britton. Temu Ellen. Nobody else noticed.

It’s a deliberate visual trick from showrunners and executive producers Nick Paley and  Anthony King that places viewers inside Sonny’s reality. While everyone around him recognizes Ellen, Sonny sees a woman who looks similar, but not quite, like Britton. Is his mother an imposter, or is something happening inside Sonny’s head?

“The really important thing was the subtlety,” explained Paley. “We really wanted to feel like people searching for the difference and having it be so subtle that it felt like on the line, so that it was believable that other people also would necessarily see a difference. And walking that line was really interesting. We showed it to so many people, and people had so many different reactions.”

“You wanted to feel like slightly uncanny, like you kind of feel it in your gut, ‘That’s not his mom. That’s not Connie Britton. What’s going on?’ And so that’s kind of what we were aiming for,” explained King.

“We all know Connie Britton and the way that she speaks and her affect, and so combining those really like lovely familiar things that she brings to every performance with that slight difference, it really identifies you with Sonny because you’re like, ‘Where’s the woman we love watching? Is she there? Is that her?” laughed Paley.

Disney/David Astorga

While the visual trick puts audiences in Sonny’s shoes, Britton approached Ellen’s transformation from a different perspective, focusing on how the accident changed both mother and son.

“Even for us, it was a little bit of a mystery,” Britton explained. “For me, it was really interesting to toy with how is she changed? Regardless of how he’s perceiving her, she has also changed, and she changes in terms of what her needs are, what she thinks she is going to have to do in order to regain this relationship.”

“Looking face to face into the eyes of her son, who is so dramatically changed, and that makes her have to go into recesses of her own soul that she never had to go into. So, it’s really more a psychological experience that I was trying to capture and, you know, play around with.”

Back at school, Sonny’s paranoia intensified when he compared photographs of Ellen to an old Costco membership card. To him, the faces didn’t match. His paranoia took hold to the point that he even heard a crying doll apparently come alive.

Desperate for answers, Sonny turned to former-ish flame Mallory (Grace Brennan), with whom he had some unresolved tension. Years ago, the two kissed during a camping trip, but Mallory ghosted him, though she claims she was turned away by Ellen. Sonny also enlists the help of Mallory’s cousin Weldon (Colter Lee), a conspiracy theory enthusiast who was more than willing to entertain the possibility that Ellen had been replaced by a lookalike.

Hulu/Disney

The trio examined photographs and videos of Ellen, but Sonny noticed something more troubling: His mother returned their secret shoulder-squeeze code.

At a school dance, Sonny became desperate. When Vogel tried to intervene, Sonny shoved him down as he ran to Ellen. He squeezed her shoulder in their secret code. She didn’t squeeze back.

Throughout the story, recordings of Sonny speaking with an unidentified woman suggest he is recounting events later, still convinced his mother is missing.

Episode 1 closes with an unidentified man dumping a plastic-wrapped body into the river.

In Episode 2, “Cosby, Stills and Nash” Sonny spends the weekend hiding in his bedroom, convinced Ellen is an imposter. He’s even afraid his food might be poisoned. Nobody believes him. Well, almost nobody.

Weldon entertains Sonny’s suspicions, while Mallory remains skeptical but supportive. At school, Sonny’s altercation with Vogel lands both boys in the office of counselor Justin Chang (Kelvin Yu), who becomes interested when Vogel mentions Sonny’s paranoia.

Meanwhile, Ellen’s newfound friendship with Chloe unsettles Sonny. He considers going to the police, but after learning someone broke into their house while he was hospitalized, he keeps his suspicions to himself.

Disney/David Astorga

Sonny and Mallory’s attempt to hire a private investigator fails, and photos from Ellen’s Costco card end up with school counselor Justin. While Justin admits Ellen seems different, he suspects Sonny is projecting trauma from the accident onto his mother. But Sonny isn’t convinced.

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With Weldon’s help, he visits Sharla (Meera Syal), an unconventional private investigator willing to consider possibilities others dismiss. Her three tracking dogs, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, provide the second episode’s title.

Sharla initially questions whether Sonny is looking for attention. But she knows what being called crazy feels like. More importantly, she asks practical questions. If Ellen has been replaced, why? Would she need an accomplice?

Meanwhile, Ellen transfers the entire $15,000 balance out of a bank account. Sort of sus.

And that strange body disposal? It might not have gone unnoticed. A flashback reveals that a teenager fleeing police near the river noticed something disturbing in a beaver dam. Whatever he saw sent him running.

Phony, Series Premiere, October 20, Hulu