‘A Million Little Things’ Boss on the Season 2 Finale & Its Life-Changing Cliffhanger
Finale
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 2 finale of A Million Little Things, “‘Til Death Do Us Part.”]
A million little things just went terribly wrong on A Million Little Things.
The Season 2 finale ended with quite the cliffhanger: Eddie (David Giuntoli) almost drank, only to get hit by a car as he left the bar on the phone with Katherine (Grace Park). Rome (Romany Malco) and Regina (Christina Moses) were heartbroken after Eve chose to keep the baby. Maggie (Allison Miller) told Gary (James Roday) she loved him only for him to choose Darcy (Floriana Lima).
Here, showrunner DJ Nash breaks down the finale and teases what could be coming if there is a Season 3.
What did you want to put Eddie through this season, from his search for answers to almost drinking to getting hit by that car? At times it felt almost like he was on a path of self-destruction.
DJ Nash: We had a new writer join us this season who said we saw Eddie’s remorse and we saw his guilt in the first season, but we never really saw him be punished. So the decision to have Katherine walk out at the end of [201] really was based on this idea of, if we see Eddie punished, we’ll root for him even more.
(ABC/Bettina Strauss)
The season was really about putting him in places where he had challenges, and he showed true grit, hopefully, and so stepping up for Katherine [and everything with Dakota, the drugs, his sister], and then giving him a story with his childhood that would threaten his sobriety were just challenges to see, are you going to be the man you promised your wife you would be? And in the 11th hour, he puts the drink down and plans to go home to take the vows to say, “I will be that life partner I promised you I’d be.” But then he’s hit by a truck.
How worried should we be about him surviving?
I’m not going to say whether he’s dead or alive, but Katherine and Theo’s life will never be the same.
I loved Eddie and Katherine planning to renew their vows, but he did keep things from her and almost drink. How did you want to test their relationship?
We saw Katherine finally be part of the marriage she always wanted and we saw her and Eddie really move towards being equal spouses in this marriage. I knew that if we got to the end of this season, people might be saying, “Well, everything’s perfect, where do we go from here?” Where we went was this accident.
Katherine was brought back into the friend group and had that great moment in her new office in “One Year Later.” What did you want to do with that dynamic, especially given how the finale ended for her?
[During the table read for] that scene, Grace Park cried. I don’t know whether it was that she was identifying so closely with Katherine and this was such a huge moment for her, I don’t know whether it [spoke] to how strong her relationship has become with the cast and with me, but she really was moved. It was so powerful to see. She even made a toast afterwards that was just beautiful.
There’s so many people who identify with her, who see her as a source of strength, and have felt like she wasn’t protected by the group as much as she should have been. So for her to have that moment was gratifying not only for the character and apparently for the actor, but also for fans of Katherine, who got to see her importance and how much she’s loved acknowledged.
(ABC/David Bukach)
Rome and Regina’s journey to being parents this season had the heartbreaking ending I feared. How do they recover as individuals and as a couple? Can they?
Really, what they’re dealing with is the death of a child, and that is the one thing you go, can a marriage survive that? You asked exactly the right question. How do you move on? And particularly complicating the situation is the idea that Regina had prepared herself for a life without kids, and then after Renee died and seeing Rome with PJ, a bunch of factors, she decided she wanted this. And so when she said, “Rome, you made me want this,” there’s a certain part of her that is putting a wall up against anything that hurt her or anyone that played a hand in her being hurt.
How is this going to affect their relationships with the rest of the group? We saw Regina back away after seeing Delilah with Charlie.
That’s what I love about writing this show, is that something on the surface [that] seems to affect only two characters really affects all of them. In the scene before, when she was worried about Eve’s health and the baby’s health because of the preeclampsia, she turned to the mothers of the room and said, “Has anyone ever gone through this?” That was very much deliberate, so that in the next scene, when she’s there without her child, she looks at this tableau of a woman surrounded by her three children and now feels like, “You can’t understand my pain.”
Someone being able to identify with someone else’s pain has been a big part of our show. It’s why Maggie and Gary found each other. This is the one man in her life who could understand what going through breast cancer was like. And so for Regina, who now has to find a way to move on, her most trusted resource, her best friend Delilah, may not understand.
Gary and Maggie had a few conversations they’ve needed to have for some time in the last few episodes. Whether they have a romantic future or just remain friends, how much do they need this time away from one another, with Maggie choosing Oxford and Gary figuring out things in his own life?
You’re asking such great questions, and you’re phrasing them in exactly the right way because they absolutely need this time apart. At the end of last season, Maggie, as they’re moving in together, says, “Gary, I’m worried you’re trying to save me the way you couldn’t save Jon,” and we did that so when we went into Season 2, we would have them struggling to figure out who they are without cancer.
Cancer brought them together. They met at that support group, he helped her beat cancer, and then they struggled with first the psychic and having a different take on psychics and then when Eric came into their life. They struggled to figure out who they were together because they were struggling to figure out who they are individually.
(ABC/Bettina Strauss)
This time at Oxford and his time with Darcy, while you may see it as sad because everyone may have been hoping he was going to the airport to get on that plane with her, what he went to the airport to say was “I love you. So, as you’re trying to figure out who you are at Oxford, know that who you are is someone who’s loved.” We’re setting up Gary and Maggie to have the most potential they’ve ever had to end up together.
Gary called Darcy his “fresh start,” and she certainly seems to be that for him, not just in terms of a romantic relationship but who he is. He did choose her, but will part of him struggle with that choice even if he tries to deny he is?
That’s what happens in life, when you pick A, you wonder about B, the grass is always greener. The compliment the show gets that means the most to me is that people feel it’s authentic, and what you’re describing is a very authentic reaction, so I would be smart to include something like that in the show.
Delilah’s had a rough season, especially in terms of her relationship with Sophie and we go that great moment of her talking about not grieving Jon. How much is it about who Miles is and who he represents — the fact that she can move on — that’s important for where she is right now?
It’s interesting that you said she’s had a rough season in terms of the kids because that scene at the hospital where Sophie asks her, “Did you love him?” and at first she’s thinking about Dad, and she says, “No, I’m talking about Eddie.” It was one of the longest scenes we’ve had in the series, where I just sat with them because they just delivered it so well.
But to me, there’s been so many important milestones in Delilah and Sophie redefining and entering the next phase of their relationship as two women. Yes, there were challenges — finding out she was on the pill, finding the pot — but they are both a better daughter and a better mother because of how they’ve pushed through these challenges.
(ABC/David Bukach)
We saw Delilah do something in the last few episodes that we didn’t see her do a whole lot in the first season and a half, which was smile. When you lose someone, certainly when you lose your spouse to suicide, there is a period of mourning and it’s not that that goes away, it’s just that it changes. Time lets you heal, and so we’re seeing Delilah heal.
As she was first seeing Miles, she’s not allowing herself to enjoy herself and then she has this dream of Jon basically giving her permission, “All I want is for you to be happy.” So hopefully Delilah will allow herself the happiness she deserves, and probably we will see things get in the way of that.
