Note: This story contains spoilers from “Loot” Season 3, Episode 10.
“Loot” loves to leave viewers hanging with a hilarious cliffhanger, but nothing could prepare you for the end of Season 3.
Episode 10, titled “Hail Mary Time,” saw Molly (Maya Rudolph) and her team travel to Italy to confront Luciana (D’Arcy Carden) at her wedding to John (Adam Scott), after she sent the FBI after the Molly Wells Foundation in their ongoing feud. But crashing the wedding ended up bringing the nemeses closer, when Molly arrived to find a devastated Luciana after John called off the wedding minutes before it was set to take place. The near-wedding vibes were strong enough to inspire both of Molly’s suitors to propose to her in the final moments of the episode — leaving her decision up in the air.
“I always love ending with some sort of comedy cliffhanger,” series co-creator and showrunner Matt Hubbard told TheWrap. “We leave with these two paths that are in front of Molly. Two roads that both have validity, but that are both going to present challenges. It felt like a really fun way to end things.”
John’s decision to leave Luciana helped both women realize they did not need to fight each other, but rather join forces against the billionaires wronging them and the world; setting up a fun dynamic should the series return for Season 4.
The Season 3 finale also opened a new door for Sofia (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez), when she was tapped to run for Congress. While that puts her future at the Molly Wells foundation into question, Hubbard said Sofia’s political aspirations will certainly play a role as the series moves forward. Though Apple TV has yet to renew the series for Season 4.
Below, Hubbard breaks down the larger scope of “Loot” Season 3, bringing Rudolph and Carden together, saying goodbye to Meagen Fay’s Ronda and more. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: Congratulations on a fantastic Season 3 of “Loot.” This season took Molly and the gang on a crazy journey. What was your guiding force in the writers’ room as you crafted these episodes?
Hubbard: One thing that I’ve found about “Loot,” which is really fun about it but is also challenging, is that it keeps wanting to get bigger. The bigger we go, the more fun we have.
One thing Maya and I both wanted to do [this season] is have a little bit more of an international flavor to this season. These philanthropists are always jetting around and meeting with people and doing things. So that’s why we did an episode that takes place in England and a cricket match. And we did obviously the island episode. There’s a later episode in the season that takes place entirely in Korea. So we thought that was really fun and wanted to just continue to enjoy Molly’s world and the scope of her world.
In the other, more serious half of the season, Molly really comes into her own as a leader and as someone who is willing to speak truth to power a little bit more. So we wanted to have her really start contending with these other billionaires. And even between the time when we started writing the show — and honestly, even started writing this season — billionaires have become so much more prevalent in our life. We’re just talking about them all the time and obviously, what’s happened with the government. So it felt like it was a real opportunity to talk about these people and how they affect our lives, and what if there was one of them who was trying to do the right thing, which has always been the promise of the show.
Molly and Arthur’s relationship takes center stage as the couple deals with how their differences impact their growing connection — until they eventually break up. What led to introducing Maro as Molly’s escape patch from the relationship?
One thing that I’ve always liked about the character of Molly — one thing that I think is kind of heroic about what she’s trying to do — is that a billionaire at any moment can just be like, “I’m out.” You have the privilege of just being like, “I can go to my other house … I can do whatever I want because of my wealth and no one can bother me.” You can put this bubble around you.
So I was like, say she’s just having problems with Arthur, like you always do with your partners, and it’s not going well. And this very younger, hot man who really idolizes her, presents himself as this thing that would be so much easier. How hard would that be to resist if you’re her? So that was the basis of Maro.
And then it was just fun just talking about this sort of incredibly hot guy that literally lands on her doorstep. We were so lucky to cast Zane, who Joel had known he had from doing “Fire Island” with him. He came in and was so funny, he just got the role so perfectly that we loved working with him.
I loved the introduction of D’Arcy Carden as Luciana, aka Ashley Kate. How did you decide on D’Arcy to come join as this wild new adversary for Molly?
We’d been wanting to work with D’Arcy since the show began. I actually have never worked with D’Arcy, but know many people who have from “The Good Place,” and I was just a huge “Good Place” fan and Maya was in a “Good Place” with D’Arcy. So we were always trying to figure something out for her.
Then we started talking about John’s new girlfriend and what she was hiding. And it just started getting funnier and funnier and thought, “We really need someone who’s A+ level, elite comedy person to do this.” And it was like, it’s obviously D’Arcy. Without even saying anything, we kind of were writing it for her, just with the hopes that she would agree to do it. And she was incredible. I mean, she had to do the switching between accents, driving a pink cyber truck down Hollywood Boulevard. She was so funny and so good.
The season wraps up at Luciana’s failed wedding. Molly is there when John ends up bailing and leaving Luciana at the altar, turning the foes into friends. That means the investigation against the foundation is over. Why end things there between those two?
I thought it was interesting that these two women who had been wronged by this guy had somehow turned on each other. And I felt like there was a broader point there about how we are often forced to turn on each other by people who are in these positions of power with extraordinary amounts of money, who want to keep it. So it felt like it was the right thing to have them realize that. And hopefully that allows us to bring D’Arcy back next season also.
But I wanted to end on a note where they’ve been through similar things. And it felt like there was something optimistic about that. I think the show is ultimately living in a space where the good sides of people’s nature come forth in the end.
Perhaps the biggest headline from the finale was leaving Molly as she pondered whether to accept either of the two wedding proposals from Arthur and Maro. How did you decide on that ending cliffhanger and where do we go from here?
I always love ending with some sort of comedy cliffhanger. We leave on these two paths that are in front of Molly. Two roads that both have validity, but that are both going to present challenges. It felt like a really fun way to end things.
As Molly moves forward in the show, one thing that I thought was really fun Arthur-Molly stuff was that they were flirting for two seasons, and there was so much of them being in conflict this year because they were in a relationship, and no matter what happens, things feel like they’ve taken another step forward. So this is another ball of conflict that we can deal with.
We also end with Sofia deciding to run for office, which means her potential exit from the Molly Wells Foundation. Candidates need donors though so I could see Molly helping in this campaign. How deep into this political storyline do you want to go in a potential Season 4?
That’s a good question. I think the thing I’m most interested in with Sofia is that at her core, part of her is always questioning, “Am I on the right team here?” That’s always something that someone who so believes in helping other people and who comes from this activist background thinks about. Molly wants to do the right thing, but Sofia’s working for a billionaire, so at her core that’s something that she has to deal with. So we really wanted to present an opportunity to her to try something else.
I haven’t quite figured out exactly what’s going to happen, but I feel like that conflict could be good and could be fun. I love just diving into that character and what she thinks about what the right thing to do is, and how that’s changed over the years as you get older.
It was fun to see Sofia and how she grew in healing her relationship with her sister Destiny (X Mayo). How was it exploring that part of the character this season?
What’s fun about that character was that in the beginning of the show, she did not want to tell anyone about her personal life. We did an episode early on about how secretive she is sometimes with her relationships, but I feel like that character, you’re always wondering, “What is she doing here? What is she doing in LA? How did she fall into this line of work?” So, I wanted to tell a story about her background and where she came from.
We kicked around different things. But then the sister idea felt like it was really fun, because it also gave Howard this love interest. Some of our writers had had complicated relationships with their siblings, so we were just mining that and built this older sister, younger sister dynamic. It felt like a really fun way to have Sofia be confronted by the idea that she’s really good at helping huge amounts of people, but not this one person who’s so close to her.
But we missed her boyfriend Isaac (O-T Fagbenle) this season. Could he return or is that relationship over?
I loved that whole Isaac story we did. We were so full this year with so much going on. And once we had done this sister thing, we thought, “Let’s really dive into that.” But she’s still with Isaac.
There were versions of this where we brought O-T back. But he’s very, very busy. I would love to have Isaac back later on, especially if Sofia’s running for office … he would be a great first gentleman.
We also said goodbye to Rhonda after she decided to stay in Gerald Canning’s nude paradise in the premiere. Why lose that member of Team Molly?
I loved working with Meagen and Rhonda was so great. She’s got so much other stuff going on that it was sometimes hard to pull her in. But then also, when we thought of this island idea, it was just the perfect thing that Rhonda stayed. I fully expect, in my mind, that she is now married to Henry Winkler’s character and is living on the island happily. But if Molly ever needs either of them, she’ll call on them. I would be all for seeing both of them come back at some point.
How are you feeling about the possibility of Season 4. How long do you see the show going?
We love doing this show. I come from the old sitcom world where we used to do seven seasons and 22 episodes, and that world is gone. But I always tried to build “Loot” when Alan and I created it for distance. It’s not like there’s some huge premise at the center of it, it’s about a job and a woman and her relationships and how she changes. So I do think there’s more stories to tell.
Apple has always been so supportive of us creatively, and have always been supportive of promoting the show. So we’re here when they want to do another season.
“Loot” Seasons 1-3 are now streaming on Apple TV.
