‘Utopia’ Star Dan Byrd on What Season 1’s ‘Splintered’ Ending Means for Ian and Becky’s Future

Amazon star tells TheWrap “obviously Becky and Ian are the romantic story that we’re following here”

Ian Becky Utopia
Amazon Prime Video

(Warning: This post contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of “Utopia.”)

By the end of the first season of Gillian Flynn’s “Utopia” the crew that has been trying to solve the conspiracy at the center of a comic book in order to save humanity from a virus gets separated into factions that will surely lead to some serious complications in a potential second season of the Amazon series.

Christie (John Cusack) has Becky (Ashleigh LaThrop) and Wilson Wilson (Desmin Borges) in his grasp, after Wilson Wilson seemingly came over to his side and tricked Becky into coming too. Grant (Javon Walton) has been arrested by the police. Jessica Hyde (Sasha Lane) finally made it Home, which turns out to have been a really bad idea, as she’s seriously sick with we don’t know what, and the hostage of Agent Milner (Sonja Sohn), a woman she believed to have been looking out for her all this time. After helping destroy the Stearns flu vaccine that was going to give everyone who received it a virus that would sterilize them, Stearns (Rainn Wilson) took the “mother egg” with the virus and drove off. And Ian (Dan Byrd) — who had a beautiful moment of mutual romantic confessions with Becky while destroying the vaccine — and Alice (Farrah Mackenzie) are left alone, without the others, just wandering the streets.

“Ian is pretty much shook right now, as is the rest of the group, being splintered off the way they are,” Dan Byrd told TheWrap. “Becky realizing Wilson’s betrayal at the end of the episode. Jessica’s obviously off on her trip at Home, finally, which we know little about by the end of this episode, but it does exist and she’s there. And Ian being paired with Alice is definitely an unlikely pairing, but I think they’re also a fun pairing. She’s almost like the grownup of the two. She’s the one that seems a little more resourceful and the one that’s actually going to get them through whatever they have to go through next.”

Dan Byrd
Photo by Eric Hobbs

“So I thought it was interesting and it’s definitely ripe for some fun material if we’re able to continue the story further. And I think it’s interesting just putting these characters into just completely different circumstances now and seeing how they deal with that and how they eventually find their way back to each other, which, I think, would be a big part of the journey in Season 2. Granted, I know absolutely nothing about Season 2 — or if there will be a Season 2.”

Byrd is right, “Utopia,” which launched Friday, yet to be renewed for a Season 2 by Amazon. But until we find out if we’re getting more of the series, we’ll have the adorable romantic moment between Becky and Ian kissing passionately as the boxes of Stearns vaccine come crashing down around them in Christie’s lab.

“That scene is obviously this culminating scene for at least these particular characters and obviously Becky and Ian are the romantic story that we’re following here,” Byrd said. “So to have that moment where they’re really committing to each other in a verbal way I think is a nice moment and it’s a funny juxtaposition on top of everything else that is going on.”

“Utopia” Season 1 is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

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