‘Three Women’ Showrunner Says Surreal Ending Aims to Make Women Feel Like They’re ‘Not Alone’
Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Three Women” Episode 10.
The final moments of “Three Women” are supposed to communicate a very specific idea: You are not alone.
Most of the Starz series follows Gia (Shailene Woodley) as she darts between her three interview subjects and her own complex relationship with love and sex. But in the series’ final moments, Sloane (DeWanda Wise), Lina (Betty Gilpin) and Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy) finally appear together on screen. One moment, a terrified Gia looks at her nurse as she waits to go into a MRI machine, a test that will determine whether or not she has lung cancer. The next, that nurse is replaced by these three complex women all in scrubs.
“She’s in this moment of crisis and distress, and all the women are there around her, comforting her,” showrunner and executive producer Laura Eason told TheWrap. “That is what the show at large is trying to do — to have everyone bring their unique, individual story but to be able to hold space for each other and be there for each other and to have women feel that they’re not alone.”
Though there’s a clear finality to “Her Name,” the conclusion of the Starz show was actually filmed during the same midseason block as Episode 6, “Climax.” Both episodes were directed by So Yong Kim, and both are the only episodes to feature all four of the main characters. But instead of highlighting the women’s pleasure as Episode 6 does, Episode 10 takes on a far more reflective tone.
“[The episodes] are sort of speaking to each other stylistically,” Eason said. “We’re processing the fallout and then landing fully in Episode 10.”
Equally important as featuring all of the women in the finale was incorporating Maggie’s story in a way that felt both organic and earned. Throughout the series, Gia has a fairly straightforward relationship with two of her sources, Lina and Sloane. The series shows Gia meeting them both and chronicling their life stories through lengthy conversations. That isn’t the case with Maggie. As Gia narrates what the high schooler is going through, the series never shows how Gia came to know Maggie’s story.
At least that’s the case until “Her Name.” As they sit across from each other in a diner for the first time, Gia tells Maggie the three words she’s been dying to hear ever since Maggie’s romance with her English teacher became public: “I believe you.” It was vital to Eason and the team that this moment landed.
“One of the things you’re waiting for over the course of the season is when is Gia’s story going to finally connect with Maggie’s?” Eason said. “To then have her story end in this place of being seen and heard by Gia, we thought was very powerful.”
Prior to filming the scene, Woodley and Creevy were so “deeply connected” to their characters they didn’t need much direction.
“There wasn’t a lot that really needed to be said,” she explained. This level of character certainty applied to all four of this series’ leads. “It always felt like we were on the same page and moving in the same direction in a really beautiful way.”
This symmetry wasn’t limited to this one scene. “Every day on set felt special. I don’t know how else to say it. It felt more than making a show, which is amazing anyway, but to be making something that we all cared about so deeply and loved so deeply, it been such a wonderful collaboration,” Eason said. “It was just such a perfect combination of people, and you can’t know if that’s going to be the case. It was just one of those lightning-in-a-bottle situations.”
It doesn’t look likely that this special situation will continue after this first season. “Three Women” details Lisa Taddeo’s book of the same name, and STARZ is promoting the show as a limited series. But, in a world where limited series do sometimes get multiple seasons, Eason is possibly open to more.
“We’re thrilled that it’s on and thrilled people are watching. We’ll see what the future holds,” she said.
Since the series premiered in mid September, Eason said the response to it has been “really moving.” “Part of adapting this very beloved non-fiction book for television, you always worry ‘Are the people that loved it going to love it in this version? Are the people that don’t know the book at all going to feel that the door is open enough for them?'” Eason said. “Both of those things are turning out to be the case, which is really the most gratifying thing.
“It does make you realize we don’t see these kinds of stories enough,” Eason concluded. “But I’m hoping people will be able to point to it and say, ‘What they did in “Three Women,” we need more of that.’ That’s the dream of ours too.”
All episodes of “Three Women” are now streaming on Starz.
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