Note: This story contains spoilers from “Elle” Season 1, Episode 8.
As Prime Video’s “Elle” wrapped up its first season, the “Legally Blonde” prequel left its leading lady (Lexi Minetree) caught between two love interests: Miles (Jacob Moskovitz) and Dustin (Zac Looker).
While it was Miles with whom Elle shared her first kiss, her friendship with activist Dustin blurred its lines by the Season 1 finale, when he kissed Elle as she returned to Seattle for the winter informal. It’s not until after it’s over that Elle noticed Miles had seen the kiss, leaving her caught between two love interests as the finale cut to credits.
“What makes it unique to me is both guys are really, really nice guys,” co-showrunner Caroline Dries told TheWrap, joking that she’s written love triangles where one love interest has “killed the person’s brother” à la “Vampire Diaries.” “I’m all for it, but they’re both great guys and they’re both great catches.”
“When you’re learning how to write characters [you’re taught] to torture your characters, and I think we’re doing such a great job of torturing Elle every step of the way,” Dries continued. “Giving her two great choices is so cruel, and … I think that’s … what makes the love triangle so fun.”
Beyond the love interests, the last episodes of Season 1 saw another love triangle take form as Elle headed back to Bel-Air amid the fallout of her Cosmo story surfacing — only to be pulled back to Seattle to see her winter formal plans through and support Liz (Gabrielle Policano) as she made her music debut.
“When I originally pitched the show to Amazon, more than having a love triangle, even between her and the guys, the thing that I always said was [that] it’s really a love triangle between her, Seattle and L.A.,” co-showrunner Laura Kittrell told TheWrap. “The idea was always going to be L.A. coming back and tempting her, and then her having to make the choice of who is actually right for her, and that being Seattle.”
That love triangle will push “Elle” into Season 2, which recently wrapped production. “It’s really like what it means for her to have chosen Seattle … what it means for her to live in a place and not have the safety net of L.A. that she’s given herself over the course of season,” Kittrell said.
Upon Elle’s return to Seattle, she also comes face-to-face with Shannon (Danielle Chand), her first Seattle friend she betrayed by kissing Miles, her ex-boyfriend, and who alerted the school of her Cosmo story. It’s a 180 from the safe place that Shannon once provided for Elle at the start of her time in Seattle, with Dries noting director Jason Moore lit Shannon in a beam of light, saying “she’s really supposed to be this angelic figure that comes right when Elle is at one of her lows.”
“It was also important for Elle to experience … a friendship breakup, and … having to choose between a girl and a guy — that’s such a foundational situation that people find themselves in in high school, and we wanted to see how Elle would react to that,” Dries said. “Shannon sort of evolved into this very important character.”
As for whether we’ll see Shannon again, Dries said it’s TBD. “We did put a bow on it, more or less, but … it’s like a little awkward bow, because that was something that Elle couldn’t fix.”
Elsewhere in the finale, another romance was rekindled with Liz and Kimberly (Chandler Kinney), who first saw sparks fly prior to Elle’s arrival in Seattle. For Dries and Kittrell, the key to Liz and Kimberly’s relationship was being accurate to what the ’90s meant for the queer community while “not wanting to wallow in queer grief.”
“We have a character who’s not out, but also not wanting to tell the coming out story that we’ve seen a million times,” Kittrell said. “The way the audience is even introduced to Liz being queer, of … this is not a source of angst for her — there’s an angst in the Kimberly relationship, but it’s never about her own sexuality.”
There will be plenty more to be explored for Liz and Kimberly when “Elle” returns for Season 2, which Dries hopes can land an annual release cycle.
“I find, as a fan of binging myself just because I can’t stop myself, I prefer when things come as fast as possible, because you don’t want to wait,” Dries said. “But I trust the Amazon system.”
“Elle” Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.