Spoilers for The Undoing finale ahead.
Look, I’m mainly concerned about the coats. Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) owns an entire wardrobe of spectacular coats, which she’ll almost certainly need to sell to pay for therapy for her traumatized son, Henry (Noah Jupe). We learn in the sixth and final episode of HBO’s sleeper hit The Undoing that young Henry not only found his father’s murder weapon, but he also ran it through the dishwasher—twice!—to protect Jonathan (Hugh Grant) from prosecution. But Grace makes short order of any possible acquittal when she takes the stand and works some Harvard University-approved psychological magic that points to the truth: Jonathan is a sociopath, and more than capable of killing Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis). Jonny then straps Henry into the passenger seat of his Range Rover, drives off for Canada, and begs his son to remember his true “legacy.” He parks on a bridge, almost jumps, then changes his mind in time for Grace to come running—coat fluttering in the wind—to save her little boy.
So, yes: Henry will need therapy. Lots of it. Grace, too. So with all those extra medical bills, will we see the coats again in a second season? Perhaps Grace can depend on the trust fund brigade, including her father and friends, to secure her style for a few years longer? Unfortunately it’s doubtful we’ll find out. Here’s why a second season of The Undoing is possible, but unlikely.
The director liked keeping the story short and sweet.
Although the first season was only six episodes long, the creators seem happy with bringing the story to a close. Director Susanne Bier told Entertainment Weekly, “This is a tight story, which is why I think six hours is perfect.”
Kidman herself seems happy with the one-and-done season: “[The show is] not like a drama series where you’re not quite sure how they’re going to evolve and you have a next season. That’s why I say it’s like cinema, because you have a beginning, middle and end.”
A second season could happen, and both the creator and director are interested.
The Undoing is based on a book called You Should Have Known (a spoiler, in hindsight), and though the show deviates from its source material, writer David E. Kelley has discussed drawing on the ending for another season.
“Susanne Bier and I both loved the part of the book where Grace was rebuilding herself after her world fell apart,” he told The New York Times. “But for the purposes of this run, it was more about the thriller aspect. Who knows? If we did the extended life of Grace Fraser beyond this season of The Undoing, maybe we’d get into that reconstruction part.”
DAVID GIESBRECHT/HBO
In a second chapter, we’d see the aftermath of an enormous trauma in the Fraser household, which could send shockwaves throughout their cushy lives. Might Henry have inherited any of his father’s violent tendencies? If so, how will Grace address it? There’s still ample material here, but it’s doubtful HBO will jump on it without a courtroom thriller attached. At this point, a second season is just a dream.
Bier expressed a similar sentiment to Entertainment Tonight: “It’s purely wishful thinking. I’m capable of thinking that Father Christmas is real, so I will allow myself for that bit of wishful thinking. There’s been no conversations about it at all. There are no plans for it. So, like thinking that Father Christmas is coming down the chimney, maybe we can do a season 2.”
As for the coats, well, Bier acknowledges we’re concerned over their future. She helped clear any doubts that Grace might return to the screen without her outerwear. “That’s part of who [Grace] is,” she told OprahMag.com. “Yes, she’s wealthy and part of the upper echelons of the Upper East side. There’s a special dress code that belongs to that world. But she doesn’t conform to that. She dresses expensively but she’s not going to look like everybody else.” Nor would we ever want her to.
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