SPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for the finale of Bad Sisters Season 2.
Though the beginning of Season 2 of Bad Sisters might have had viewers convinced that another dead body would be disposed of by the final episode, such was not the case this time around.
Season 2 of the Apple TV+ series, co-created by Sharon Horgan and based on the Belgian series CLAN, follows the five Garvey sisters as they deal with the aftermath of Grace’s (Ann-Mare Duff) dead husband John Paul Williams’ (Claes Bang) life choices. As the body of John Paul’s father resurfaces in a suitcase from the family home’s pond, the secrets Grace and her sisters worked so hard to burry with John Paul start to resurface. The peace Grace finds when she marries Ian Reilly (Owen McDonnell) is short-lived as she dies a tragic death in Episode 2, adding even more layers and questions to the next installment’s mystery for Eva (Horgan), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene) and Becca (Eve Hewson) Garvey to navigate. This brings Fergal Loftus (Barry Ward) back onto the scene with his new charge, Detective Una Houlihan (Thaddea Graham).
As teased in the trailer and in the first episode, the four remaining Garvey sisters can be seen strategizing to toss someone’s dead corpse into the sea off the cliffs. Horgan knew whose body that was from the start.
“I did love the idea that it would stay in people’s minds a bit, like they would be wondering, because there’s so many people, it could have been. It could have been Angelica, but it could have been Roger, it could have been Loftus, it could have been Houlihan, it could have been Ian eventually,” Horgan told Deadline. “I just love the idea that it’s there and a nod to the two timelines of the first season. It gave it a different intention. It was fun to start on something so silly.”
At first, Grace’s new husband Ian seemed to be on the sisters’ side against Angelica Collins (Fiona Shaw), Roger’s (Michael Smiley) wagon of a sister whom they suspect of blackmailing Grace. The end of Episode 5 suggests that the body might be Angelica’s, as does the title of Episode 6 — “Who By Water,” but in a crazy twist of events, the old woman, who had formed a stifling attachment to Grace, turned up alive.
Fiona Shaw as Angelica Collins in ‘Bad Sisters’ Season 2
“All the decisions those characters had to make felt a lot harder and a lot less satisfying if there’s another dead body, and Angelica, she couldn’t die,” Horgan said. “I wanted her to be the heroine, really. Not the only heroine, but I wanted to show her strength and her power, but I needed the sisters to think they were f*cking in so much trouble, and for it to build and build and build.”
Unfortunately for Grace and her sisters, as Becca’s beau Joe (Peter Claffey) observes, they really know “How To Pick A Prick.” Turns out, Ian was not who he said he was, but rather Cormac, an ex-police officer with several allegations of abuse against him. The relentless Houlihan (Thaddea Graham) connected those dots before the sisters did. What started out as helpful tips on avoiding the guards turned into his own gaming of the system to bust the Garvey sisters, but luckily, Houlihan — with the help of a retired Loftus — changed tack and asserted justice with him.
“With Ian, I wanted that final moment, that f*ck you. I love the dark comedy of it, I love that Eva got to look into his eyes. I like that Houlihan gets to have one over on him,” Horgan said. “I didn’t see what would be gained from the design that wasn’t way more satisfying to see him getting his broken leg punched by Loftus. It just felt so much more fun. And like I said, ‘choices.’ Houlihan, what she does at the end for them, I think I just would have found it really hard to believe that choice if there was a dead body.”
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“It’s so weirdly practical when you break it down like this this, when you start talking about story and how you sort of arrive at it, the routes you take,” she added. “I want it to be magical, a lot of the time there’s practical reasons and, and that’s not always a bad thing. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that, you always arrive at places that are unexpected in the end.”
Horgan sees Season 2 as the end of the Garvey sisters’ story. The parallel between the final scene of Season 2 to that of Season 1, with water involved in both, was intentional.
“There is a connection, for sure, and it’s a horribly sad one, but I think what I wanted to show in the end was, was just that they’re all together, and they’re still a family and life continues. Becca and her baby, we hope we know, that Blanaid will be okay because she’s got this incredible mother that she thinks about, and that she knew so much is a revelation, as it were, but that she has such a head on her shoulders, that she’s so smart and strong, and I wanted people to feel like she’s going to be okay,” Horgan said. “She’s got these incredible women around her, and they’re saying goodbye, but as it sort of drifts off into the sea, it’s that feeling of life continuing. There’s something beautifully poetic about that, and inevitable. The happy ending at the end of one was, I loved it in so many ways. I loved it but, I’ve said this before, but it was a kind of fairy tale. Life is not usually as tied up in a bow as that.”
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