Note: This story contains spoilers from “All Her Fault” Episode 8.
Once Carrie Finch (Sophia Lillis) shows up at the Irvine’s house with a loaded gun, the “All Her Fault” finale takes a violent turn that results in multiple deaths.
Just seconds after her arrival, Carrie unintentionally shoots Colin (Jay Ellis) when he reaches for her gun, and things only escalate from there. Carrie attempts to have as much of a heart-to-heart with Marissa (Sarah Snook) as she can with a gun, revealing the true antagonist in the situation as Peter (Jake Lacy), who swapped his and Marissa’s dead baby with Carrie’s living one after the car crash.
But Carrie can only start Marissa on that path of discovery when Peter attacks Carrie and fatally shoots her before she can say anything more in a move that creator Megan Gallagher noted “says a whole heck of a lot about about Peter and how desperate he is in that moment, and what he’s capable of.”
While the details of her death were tweaked slightly from the Andrea Mara’s book of the same name, Gallagher mused, “What other ending, if you think about it, is there for poor Carrie? I don’t know what we would do beyond that.” That said, Gallagher noted that as she was writing Carrie’s backstory for Episode 7, she realized “you could really write an entire television series about what happened with her and what she did to try to rectify the situation.”
Once the authorities arrive, Peter has his story straight, telling police that Carrie must’ve hunted down their family in a jealous rage after Milo lived while her baby died. Marissa sits by, quietly, but plots her own, personal revenge on Peter just days later at Colin’s memorial service by kissing him after eating something with soy in it, prompting Peter to have an allergy attack that can’t be helped by the expired EpiPen nor the backup emergency one that Marissa “forgot” to pack.
Gallagher notes that Marissa’s decision to take justice into her own hands without the law mirrors the conflict within Detective Alcaras (Michael Peña), who has separately been grappling with the ethics of looking the other way at work to help his son get into a special school, and ultimately lets Marissa live her life without legal punishment.
“What Marissa is grappling with in Episode 8 is the difference between law and justice, and that’s also what Michael Pena’s character is grappling with, is law and justice — they’re often not the same thing,” Gallagher said. “Both of these characters care about right and wrong and morality and ethics. They’re not bad people. They’re not evil people at all. But sometimes the what feels right isn’t strictly legal, and I really love that they’re both wrestling with that decision.”
TheWrap: Were there any changes from the book you considered making, including Peter’s role in things?
Gallagher: The book that she gave us was absolutely incredible, and unlike so many thrillers, it had an ending that was a real whopper, and it really held up to the premise and really delivered and stunned. So, no, I would never in 100 million years change that. Really what you’re doing with an adaptation, and I’ve done quite a lot of them, is not so much changing material as adding to just because of the format of television, especially when you’re looking at eight big, chunky episodes, you need so much material, often more than almost any book would give you. You’re really looking at it a little bit like an accordion, and you’re stretching it … these great tent poles that Andrea’s given me … I’m going to place them and stretch them out like this. What can I add to it, to build to those twists and supplement those twists and make them as strong as possible? It’s not about changing the fundamentals. It’s about adding to what she’s given me.
It is always assumed that it’s the husband, but there were enough red herrings at the start for Peter to not seem guilty. How did you want to tow that line and not have viewers suspect Peter too early?
You always suspect the husband. I think one of the things that we tried to do in Episode 2 is really look at him as a suspect and then discount him and assess as a suspect. I do think it’s important to say that even though, obviously, the series delves into some pretty extreme behavior on many of the characters parts, including Peter, at the end of the day, Peter’s not behind the kidnapping.
What other layers did you want to add for the series?
One thing that that was not in the book, but that I really cared about trying to get on the screen in this series as a whole, is disability, and different kinds of disabilities. Episode 4 dives into Michael Pena’s character and his son, and there’s a huge disability storyline there, but with Brian’s character, played by Daniel monks, who’s just absolutely amazing in the series, I really wanted to get a disability storyline on the screen that would be meaningful to the disabled community. I worked, not only with a disability consultant for the series, but also with Daniel himself, and so often the storylines having to do with disabilities in television and in movies, has to do with overcoming your disability or finding a way to persevere despite it and all this, and, as it was explained to me, it’s quite offensive, so being able to put a storyline on the screen that was about saying, “Yeah, I’m disabled, and this is what I need” and get over it is so much more powerful.
What was it like crafting that friendship between Marissa and Jenny?
Sarah and Dakota are amazing, we can’t say it enough. A lot of times in film and television, we resort to a low-hanging fruit way of looking at women and going for the catty, cutthroat thing. I really like the fact that Marissa has every reason in the world to actually hate Jenny and Jenny has every reason in the world to hide and to avoid Marissa Irvine like the plague because of the shame and the guilt and the potential lawsuit, and both of them are the best versions of themselves. It didn’t feel inauthentic to me at all. It feels like that’s absolutely something I can imagine any of my female friends doing. It meant the world to me to be able to pick the beginnings of a female friendship from a place that we wouldn’t have expected.
Where does all of this leave Marissa? Will she recover?
She’s really put through the absolute ringer in this series. Poor Marissa goes through quite a lot, but I think about a lot of the times that this kidnapping, though, it’s the absolute worst thing in the world that can happen to anybody, in many ways, it’s also the best thing that happened to her, because I can’t imagine going on and not knowing the truth.
She has Jenny, so I do think she’ll be okay. There’s layers of trauma before Marissa to have to process, but she has her son back, and that’s the love of her life at the end of the day.
Would you be interested in continuing the story in any way?
I think there’s plenty of ways to continue the story. I certainly would, I would never be tired of working in this world. But for now, we’re focused on the excitement of getting Season 1 out there for everyone to see.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“All Her Fault” is now streaming on Peacock.
