While the second season of “A Man on the Inside” saw Ted Danson’s Charles open his heart to love again after his wife’s passing, his love story with Mary Steenburgen’s Mona came to a close in the Season 2 finale, when Charles realized Mona’s spontaneous way of life might not be his cup of tea.
Despite already getting his life packed up to move to Croatia with Mona for a year-long teaching assignment, Charles comes to terms with his reservations with the help of his daughter, Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), and decides to break it off with Mona. Though the pair are now broken up, “A Man on the Inside” creator Mike Schur didn’t rule out Steenburgen’s Mona returning for future seasons upon returning from Croatia.
“In the same way that the characters from Season 1 come back in Season 2, I think it would stand to reason that the characters from Season 2 would come back in Season 3, especially when you’re talking about a character who’s so fundamental to Charles’ emotional journey through life,” Schur told TheWrap. “She left for a year. I don’t think that means she’s gone forever.”
It is after Charles’ breakup with Mona and the dust has settled from his investigation at Wheeler College — which concluded with Dr. Cole (David Strathairn) coming forward as the culprit behind the string of suspicious activity and the blackmail surrounding Wheeler’s billionaire alumnus Brad Vinick (Gary Cole) — that the true conspirator dawns on Charles: provost Holly Bodgemark (Jill Talley).
Charles pieced together that Dr. Cole took the fall for Holly, who had discovered Vinick’s plans to shift Wheeler from a liberal arts college to a tech-driven university, and subsequently stole Jack’s laptop and sent him the threatening email. Holly admitted that she was hoping Charles would uncover “hard evidence” of the agreement so she could leak it to the deal.
With the mystery solved at Wheeler College, Schur revealed there’s more aspects of Charles background that could be explored in potential future seasons, including his past as an engineer and his love of architecture. While “A Man on the Inside” has not yet been renewed for Season 3, Schur revealed the writers have been convening and discussing where a potential next installment might take place, and conversely, how they might “better use” the show’s San Francisco setting.
“I’m really interested in the city of San Francisco and about the ways in which American cities are being discussed right now and and demonized in ways that I don’t understand — I’ve lived in a lot of cities, and that they don’t resemble the places that are being described in the national conversation,” Schur said. “I would like that to be a more of a theme … the future of just what it’s like to live in a city, and what are the actual problems of cities, not the made up problems that you hear people talk about.”
“A Man on the Inside” Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
