[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the two-part finale of Teacup, “This is Nowhere” Parts 1 and 2.]
As violent and chaotic as Teacup already was throughout its first three weeks’ episodes, it was still a shock to the system to see what became of the Chenoweths and their neighbors in the two-part finale that arrived on Peacock this week.
Assassin made its way through the crew rapidly in the last stretch of the series, jumping from Valeria (Diany Rodriguez) to Nicholas (Luciano Leroux) and then on to Meryl (Emilie Bierre), the closest person to Arlo (Caleb Dolden) — who was, of course, inhabited by Assassin’s ultimate target, Harbinger.
By the time it made its way into their daughter’s mind, Maggie (Yvonne Strahovski) and James (Scott Speedman) had already resigned themselves to having to drown whoever Assassin was hiding within — with the hopes of reviving them afterward, free and clear of any space visitors within. So when Maggie came face to face with Meryl and realized what was happening, it was instantly devastating.
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“I think that was probably the hardest thing to wrap my head around in playing Maggie. It’s so counterintuitive to your parental instincts,” Strahovski told TV Insider of approaching the scene. “What Maggie is mainly about in this show is her parental instincts and wanting to protect her children. And so when you’re faced with this dilemma that the only way out is to actually drown your daughter, I mean, it’s unimaginable. It’s unthinkable.”
Mark Hill/PEACOCK
Speedman, meanwhile, was a big fan of that creative decision. “I loved it just because it was just so sick and twisted at the end to make us do that,” he said. “I thought that was so cool and unexpected. It was such a fun day of shooting and such a fun scene and such a fun place to take the audience, like, ‘We’re going there. We’re really, really going there.’”
As shocking as it was, the couple ultimately did drown Meryl in their bathtub — but it turned out to be a pointless exercise altogether, as Assassin was able to move into James’ body mid-thrash once his mask was ripped off. So when Maggie finally, tearfully revived Meryl, all that pain was for naught.
For Speedman, flipping the Assassin switch at the very end of his performance of James was “tricky,” especially since so many of his costars had already given their own spins to the nefarious body-snatcher’s persona: “It was kind of a suit you had to try on,” he said. “It was very fun, but it was a challenge to get there.” Still, James was undoubtedly the most vicious and directly threatening to the family, which made the final battle between himself and Maggie that much more devastating.
Mark Hill/PEACOCK
In the end, we’re left with more questions than answers about what’s really going on and what comes next. But what we do know is James has been left to die in a deep freezer with Assassin still in his head, and the rest of the survivors were able to use some of the space goo to get over the deadly threshold. Then, immediately afterward, Maggie, the kids, Ruben (Chaske Spencer), McNab (Rob Morgan), and Don (Boris McIver) ran right into a new group of people who are armed with zip ties, ketamine, and some of that shimmering liquid and demand their full cooperation — which, of course, mother Maggie is not ready to commit to.
So what comes next? Well, it depends on a renewal whether we’ll find out. “I am very much hopeful for a Season 2 and yes, the world will get bigger,” showrunner Ian McCulloch said. “We’ll always stay at this very ground level because… we need to feel with what these characters are feeling, and if we were to go big — Independence Day or something like that — then you lose that sense of grounded 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’ll always be at ground level. We’re never going to go to 30,000 feet and look down and see the world at large, if you will.”
While the actors involved in the show don’t know for sure what will become of their characters, many have their own working theories and hopes.
“For Meryl having to literally come back to life and then what happens with her dad… I think it’s something that they will always carry, and I would be interested in seeing how the relationship even just with their mom is going to be affected by that. That’s pretty traumatizing,” Bierre said.
McIver, whose character Don — a lowkey best part of the show — was one of the only actors not to play dual roles, said he would “love” to take on an inhabitor in Season 2: “I wouldn’t care which personality wanted to come through me, whatever Ian threw at me I would take, but it would be lovely,” he said.
He also has some doubts as to whether any male character will try to step up and run things in James’ stead, joking, “But yeah, you all, you do start to wonder about the hierarchy and then you think… ‘Look who’s holding the big gun.’”
Teacup, Streaming now, Peacock
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