‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ Creators Unpack Season 1 Finale, Ending

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the finale of Season 1 of Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles season one has come to a close, but the good news is that the Apple TV comedy, based on Rufi Thorpe’s best-selling novel, has been renewed for a second season.

The season one finale brings about the conclusion of Margo’s (Elle Fanning) legal battle for custody of her son Bodhi with his father her former professor Mark (Michael Angarano) and drops hints of what could be explored in its next installment along the way, most notably, messages from a JB, who sends Margo large sums as a new fan toward the end of the episode.

“We didn’t have time for it in season one, but we love that character in the book, and we have ideas,” creator David E. Kelley said.

JB becomes Margo’s love interest in Thorpe’s book, on top of the psych evaluation and Child Protective Services investigation she deals with towards the end of the novel along with her father’s relapse.

“I’ll just say, ‘Don’t count JB out,’” EP and co-showrunner for season two Eva Anderson told Deadline. “Once she’s settled her legal issues, [Margo] might have time to look into some dating. There’s a little more space for it now.”

In the below interview, Kelley and Anderson further break down the season one finale with Paul McCrane’s judge expediting the court proceedings, the fate of certain romantic relationships and areas to explore in season two.

DEADLINE: They don’t go to court in the book, that’s pretty different. Why did you want to build to that climax with the judge character?

KELLEY: I can’t help myself. If you leave me alone in a room with a legal pad and a pen, sooner or later, somebody’s going to end up in court. People have tried to do an intervention, but it felt very organic to this series, because clearly there were legal and liability issues that were percolating throughout, and we were inviting the audience to wonder, “This center cannot hold, something’s going to give” when Margo goes into OnlyFans and Mark tumbles into that reality.

That final episode, it took place in a courtroom, but it really was a family scene. Those people were all there for each other, Jinx, Shyanne, Susie, Margo, of course, Lace as the lawyer, Rose and KC in the back, all the people. Part of the series reminded me of The Wizard of Oz at times, they’re all going down this yellow brick road, a different kind of road, who knows where they’re going to end, but they were on this journey together. So it felt like a natural and organic venue for to play out the ultimate dramatic through-line in a room where they could all be a unit.

ANDERSON: And just a little behind the scenes of that scene, when the baby says, “Dada,” to Jinx. That was the day the baby started speaking. He started saying, “Dada” right before he went on camera, and we all realized that he was talking, and so we were like, “We hope this happens on camera.” And he had bonded so tightly with all the cast, except for Michael Angarano, who played Mark. So he just said “Dada” to everybody. It was so wild that we were able to use it. And it was completely organic. That was Graham [Hendrix], one of our two babies who played Bodhi.

KELLEY: It was a big challenge in that scene, there were many, many stories going on. There was Shyanne and Jinx’s story sitting next to each other. Obviously, Shyanne and Margo’s connection, Margo’s legal stakes, Kenny was sitting there. We had different prisms and point of views that we all wanted to capture their stories, even Mark holding his son for the first time. So it was necessarily going to be a very long scene to be able to unearth and do justice to all these different storylines happening in the same room. So that begat Paul McCrane, because I thought, “Okay, this scene needs to move at a pace so it will hold.” Because courtroom’s, by their nature, can be very static. It was going to be, a 10 page scene, maybe longer.

So we made the determination early on, we need a judge who’s maybe got some attention deficit disorders or impulsivity, who wants to move it along. Maybe he just really had to go to the bathroom, but he had to move through this quickly. It exemplified the series itself a little bit because very, very real truths and problems are being played out, but an element of absurdism at the same time. And Paul McCrane, who played that judge — and he did, take after take after, take after take of walking around that room like a madman and target bombing his subjects — he was just fantastic. He’s a gifted actor. He always has been. There’s a reason he’s working at one job after another. But he came in and not many people could have done that.

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ANDERSON: Perfect every time. I watched him get covered in toxic waste last night in Robocop.

DEADLINE: With the Season 2 renewal, have you thought about Kenny and Shyanne’s dynamic moving forward after Kenny called CPS, and she’s mad at him?

ANDERSON: Yeah, that’s definitely going to have to be addressed. That’s a pretty big violation, and we definitely saw the look on Shyanne’s face in that final scene. So that’s not going away anytime soon.

DEADLINE: I’m curious about the Shyanne and Jinx of it all. Obviously, Jinx has his path. He needs to work some things out, but is that something you’d want to explore?

KELLEY: Well, we are going to explore. Not going to give away any plot points, but you know the adage in relationships, or at least, I’ve heard it many times, that people need to figure out the me before we figure out the we. That’s certainly applicable in this show. But the inverse is also true. There’s a we in there that that they need to figure out in order to tumble to the me for both of them, I think, because  they’re bound up in ways, Shyanne and Jinx, that maybe, if they had the choice, they wouldn’t be, but they’re in each other’s system, right or wrong. And that system will certainly be mined in Season 2.

DEADLINE: Back to the season one finale, I’m curious about the scene where Margo tells Shyanne, “I’m gonna reveal the tunnel of love at some point.” That really felt full circle with Shyanne being more accepting. Could you talk about that moment and that whole theme in the show?

KELLEY: Yeah, that, I think, maybe, was our best effort at articulating the judgment and lack of judgment and the forsaking of judgment, because Lord knows that Shyanne had a lot of judgment for Margot and vice versa, and the acceptance they have for each other was manifested in that scene. But I let Eva write all the tunnel of love stuff.

ANDERSON: That’s not true. You wrote that. He always says that. David wrote that scene. I thought, and it was really beautiful and highlighted how far Shyanne has come, that Margo is still a kid in a lot of ways. She’s terrified, and she needs her mom in that moment. Shyanne, in the last two episodes, really starts showing up in a really different way for Jinx and for Margo, and it’s a really beautiful moment that she gets to share with her daughter.

DEADLINE: I’ll make my last question just about the OnlyFans team and making all that content. I loved the moment when Susie, KC and Rose met each other in the courtroom. Is there more teamwork to come in the future?

ANDERSON: Yeah, Susie’s gonna continue to be a creative monster because I don’t think she can help herself with all of her cosplay and her design and her big, beautiful brain. So, I do think she’ll be part of the team going forward in a much more serious way.

KELLEY: I love that you asked that question, because one of the fun parts of writing the series is anticipating and looking forward to exploring relationships of characters that we hadn’t begun with yet, because that did feel so organic. We’ve got so many different places to go, and that’s exactly one of them. What about Susie’s relationship with KC and Rose? Clearly, they’re going to have a lot in common with their performing and creative instincts, so I’m happy you got that in that courthouse corridor scene.

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