Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Palm Royale” Season 2, Episode 10.
As “Palm Royale” closed out Season 2 with a wedding between Kristen Wiig’s Maxine and Ricky Martin’s Robert, the finale gave Carol Burnett her spotlight moment with a heartwarming rendition of “The Sound of Music’s” “Something Good.”
Intended to honor the perspective of the wedding from the guests, including Burnett’s Norma, showrunner Abe Sylvia always knew “Something Good” would be his song of choice, given the ballad’s meaning to him. But initially he thought of bringing in a singer before realizing, “Why are we talking about bringing in a great singer? I have Carol Burnett on my show … This would be a beautiful way to thread all of those things together.”
Then came the challenge of asking Burnett, but Sylvia found his opening one day on set when the Hollywood legend was singing to herself while in her chair. “I said, ‘Carol, would you ever consider singing on our show?’ And she said, ‘Well, that depends, what’s the situation?’ ” Sylvia recalled, noting she hadn’t yet read the finale script, though she was still a bit hesitant before asking what the song would be.
“She went, ‘That’s Julie’s song,’ and … I’m embarrassed to say that it hadn’t occurred to me that Julie Andrews obviously sang that song first and is Carol Burnett’s best friend,” Sylvia said, also noting that “The Sound of Music” came out two years before “Palm Royale” takes place. “I kind of gasped, not realizing fully what I had asked. And she said, ‘I’ll do it.’ So it’s also this wonderful moment that honors Carol Burnett’s lifelong friendship with Julie Andrews subtly underneath all of it.”
The performance kickstarts a happy ending for Norma, who sees her adopted son off into his wedding while simultaneously accepting his sexuality, before she appears in Paris with newly revealed daughter, Linda (Laura Dern), set on catching up on years of mother-daughter bonding.
Most of the women of Palm Beach got their happy endings by the end of Season 2: Maxine and Robert’s marriage unlocks the generation-skipping Dellacorte trust, which helps her re-open the Palm Royale with Evelyn (Allison Janney), who ends her relationship with Eddie as she prioritizes her independence. Some of the trust is also allocated to Linda, as well as Mitzi (Kaia Gerber), who now has Eddie by her side, and even Dinah (Leslie Bibb) gets her wish as Perry is elected mayor.
“Maxine got everything she wanted in the end — she wanted the name, she wanted the house and she wanted a child. She got all of them,” Sylvia said, pointing to Robert’s son, Rafi. “She’s now a Dellacorte living in the delicate Dellacorte mansion with a kid.”
But these happy endings don’t necessarily mean “Palm Royale” is coming to a close, with Sylvia warning adversaries like Douglas (Josh Lucas), Marjorie Merriweather Post (Patti LuPone) and Rafi — who got a mysterious call in the finale — are still present. “There’s lots of places we’re going to be able to go in Season 3,” Sylvia said, while remaining tight-lipped about a green light from Apple TV.
“We wanted to leave people on a win, but with a question mark,” Sylvia said. “The firm belief that … we’ll take this happy moment for the moment that it is but … Trouble is just around the corner. Trouble is not done with our women.” The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: After almost a whole season of thinking Norma has killed her family, she’s redeemed in the finale when it’s revealed she didn’t kill anyone. Is she fully redeemed, and how can we understand her character now?
Sylvia: It’s all in that opening monologue, which Carol so beautifully leads us through: Once a person has great attained great wealth, you realize there’s always going to be somebody coming for it, and so then your wealth has to be protected, and the lengths through which a person of incredible wealth goes through to protect their money can lead, often, to murder. There’s some very definite corollaries to what we’re seeing in the world today, in terms of the length through which people will go to hang on to the money, whether they earned it or not, which in Norma-Agnes’ case is questionable.
Maxine had been pulled back into Douglas’ orbit. What makes her finally turn her back on him and embrace the friendship she has with Robert?
It’s about the ways in which men come through for the women in their lives, and the ways in which they don’t. Maxine, this whole season, she’s had these wonderful adventures with all of these women, and they’ve all banded together to make their way through Palm Beach. Throughout the season, there are all these moments where the women are facing moments of peril, and they band together and they pull their way through and sometimes in the most ridiculous ways. And so she goes to Douglas and she says, “I need you to marry Mitzi for all of the women of Palm Beach, for all the women have done for you, for all that I have done for you. Can you do this one thing for the women in your life?” And Douglas can’t, and that’s the breaking point.
We also see Evelyn choose her independence over being with Eddie. Can you walk us through her choice?
It comes down to that scene when Evelyn says to Maxine in the finale, “No one ever has said to me how lucky Eddie is.” That as an older woman, aren’t I lucky to have this young, hot guy to come home to every night? Meanwhile, I’m a woman of means — I am beautiful, I’m smart, I’m a businesswoman. Why isn’t anybody saying he’s lucky? Allison [Janney] plays that moment so beautifully and understated.
Some of the most important people in my life love being single, and that is a valid choice for a woman and a noble choice for a woman to enjoy independence. What’s amazing for Evelyn’s character, it has never occurred to her that independence is an option because it was never an option for women in that period. For both Maxine and Evelyn in the finale, they are in their own ways choosing themselves over the men in their lives, and choosing their independence and their independent thought over the constrictions of society.
We also end the finale with Linda and Norma reuniting in Paris. What do you see in their future and will we see them again?
You never know — I’m going to keep that to myself, but I do love the idea that they have their happily ever after. Every choice that we have seen both Linda and Norma make over two seasons came from the damage of their initial rift as mother and daughter, and the choices they made and the paths that they’ve taken have all been a result of the fact that they were kept apart — Linda, in this season, talking about going from man to man, having this adventurous life, but feeling rather untethered and why is she searching for love in this way? It’s because she’s never had that essential maternal bond, and so for her to be able to return to that at this point in her life is very healing.
Mitzi has her happy ending with Eddie and gets some of the money from Maxine. If there’s a third season, would she continue to be in the main cast?
I love all of my cast, and I think the beauty of our show is the ensemble, and the ways in which the ensemble pings off of one another. So absolutely, I want everybody back in Season 3 and all the new places that they can go.
We have this sweet reunion between Robert and Rafi but then hear Rafi being suspicious on the phone. Can we assume he’s not actually Robert’s son?
I wouldn’t make any assumptions one way or another. I don’t think audiences can ever get too far ahead of us.
Maxine’s twin came in for a very brief portion of the show. Did you ever consider dragging that one out a little bit longer?
In the writers room, we had a list of things we want to see Kristen Wiig do this season … and what are the sort of ’60s things we’d love to see Kristen do. She has to play her own twin “Parent Trap” style. So that was always on the board, and we didn’t quite know how it would play in until we got to Episode 6. One of the essential qualities of Maxine’s character is that she is without family. And I think if the twin were to continue, we would be robbing Maxine’s character of her driving wound. I wonder if she would have stayed friends with Mirabelle after that episode, whether or not Mirabelle died — Mirabelle did sleep with her husband. She crossed a tremendous line.
We were driving to the end of the season where Maxine, who has never had a family, chooses chosen family. It was part of making Mirabelle a bit of a villain, that it’s like, you grew up without a family. But sometimes families stink. Sometimes people have to choose. They have to go out step the color outside the lines to find a family, because the family they would have been born into. In some ways, Maxine was probably lucky to be sent to that orphanage.
“Palm Royale” Seasons 1-2 is now streaming on Apple TV.
