A Million Little Things loves to end seasons with fans wanting more, and that’s exactly what happened in the season 3 finale. Sophie went to the police about what happened with Peter, but she didn’t get the justice she deserved. After fights with Delilah and Darcy that left Gary’s future uncertain for a moment, he decided to get justice for Sophie by showing up at Peter’s house. He confronted Peter and slammed the door, leaving fans wondering what happened inside. Meanwhile, Sophie revealed to the world what Peter did to her on Maggie’s podcast, and Eddie got a phone call from a woman claiming to be the person who hit him.
HollywoodLife got EXCLUSIVE scoop from creator DJ Nash about his season 4 plans after that jaw-dropping ending. There will be “ramifications” for Sophie after Gary’s decision, and Eddie will be “tested” even more in the wake of this phone call. DJ also discussed the future of Katherine and Eddie, as well as whether or not Delilah will really move to France. Read our full Q&A below:
Gary ends up at Peter’s door, and we don’t see what happens after he pushes Peter inside. This may not be the best decision for Gary to make. How did you get to that ending and how will this decision change things next season?
DJ Nash: From a creative standpoint, the way we got to that ending was we knew that we were picked up for 18 episodes this season, but we always sort of lived in fear that at any moment COVID could reduce our order or make finishing our story impossible. We saw it happen to some friends’ shows this last season. Pretty early on, I had thought of that ending, and we shot it out of order knowing that should we ever need to place that, we had it for the end of an episode in case we got reduced. When we seemed to be still moving, we pulled in from a different episode and just knew we had that in our back pocket. From a story standpoint, we’ve seen Gary deal with his anger right from the beginning of the series. There have been moments where we’ve seen him make bad choices because of his anger. He took a painting that his best friend bought for him when he was going through chemo and smashed it to the ground. We saw him hit a car that was driving and the man gets out of the car and pulls a gun on him. Thankfully, the guy didn’t pull the trigger. We’ve seen him deal with his anger and anger that probably goes back to his mom leaving and then feeling like Jon left. I think in all the ways that he’s tried to recreate and retain a family since his mom left, this latest is sort of a perfect storm. He’s feeling guilty about what happened with Sophie, combined with learning that Delilah is ripping his family away. I think he felt like he had nothing to lose. Even the timing of that call from Darcy saying I think you’d be a great dad, he doesn’t get that message in time. I think he lets his anger and his emotion get the best of him. Not saying what happened behind that door, I don’t think it’s smart for people to make choices that Gary made at the end of our finale.
It’s definitely a perfect storm. Sophie does go to the police, but the justice system is not in her favor. But she does decide to go public with her story about Peter on Maggie’s podcast. What are your plans for Sophie next season now that she has gone public and now that Gary’s gone after Peter? It seems like this perfect storm became a tornado.
DJ Nash: I think that’s exactly the right way to phrase it. The perfect storm just became the tornado. I think she’s dealing with so many emotions as she moves from victim to survivor. That empowering decision to say, I may not be getting legal justice, but I’m going to take my power back and tell my story, it’s such an empowering moment for Sophie. Even if she’s saying it, she’s worried that the other people who’ve been hurt by Peter may not be as healthy a place as she is, which obviously speaks to Gary. I think what she doesn’t realize is happening but the audience does is that, once again, a man in her life is behaving in a violent way, and it’s going to have ramifications for her.
On the other end of that is Darcy. Gary doesn’t ever get that message Darcy left for him. She is moving to Lenox with Liam, and she had that fight with Gary. Next season, is Darcy still going to be an integral part of the show? I feel like this event with Peter may change her thoughts on Gary moving with her.
DJ Nash: She is an integral part of the show, and she is prepared to start a family with him. But with the events at Peter’s, we’ll have to see if and how that may affect that.
Delilah finally came back in this finale. She doesn’t come back to the best of circumstances. Everything’s falling apart. It all seems to come to a head for her, and she breaks down. What can you say about her arc in season 4?
DJ Nash: Well, the first thing I’ll say is the story for Delilah this season changed drastically because of COVID and Stephanie Szostak and her need to be present for her family. Our series is about family first. You can get through anything as long as you’re surrounded by the right people. When Stephanie called and said because of the quarantine in Vancouver, I can’t play the role that I was going to play on our series, we immediately understood and adjusted. So that’s the first thing I’ll say about that story this season. I do think, ironically, as Stephanie made the very appropriate choice to be there for her family, Delilah due to circumstances, some of which were out of control, did not make that decision. She wasn’t present when Danny came out at school, and she wasn’t there as her daughter was assaulted, so we’re watching the fallout of that. In terms of where that goes next season, hopefully, in the finale, our fans saw a side of Delilah’s story that isn’t often told because you’re not supposed to tell that. When someone dies by suicide, the spouse of the person and the significant other of that person, especially when there are kids, may have a huge burden that’s been put on them. I think Delilah is feeling that loss in a really profound way, and I think it’s a loss she didn’t realize until she was out of the house. I think this process of going to France with her dad, which was a selfless trip for her father’s benefit. allowed her to experience life without the burden of being the widow of someone who died by suicide or the person who had the affair. When she was leaving for the trip — I think it was episode three — she talks about how she bought new luggage because it’s the first trip she’s taking without Jon. I think that was a little nod to what she would discover on the trip, which is she has 40-50 years of her life left. While Jon’s life is over, she needs to figure out how she’s going to spend the rest of her life. When she’s in France, she discovers a freedom and happiness that she has been denied since Jon died.
She can’t be moving to France, right? She can’t take Sophie and Charlie and Danny to France.
DJ Nash: We’ll see. What’s really interesting about three seasons of the show is our fans have gotten so used to there being a card flip that when Gary’s actually knocking on Peter’s door, that becomes the surprise. So I’ll just say it’s possible that Delilah’s moving to France.
There’s obviously been a lot of friction between Eddie and Katherine since they split. At the end of the finale, Eddie could have gone the route of making this a very nasty custody battle, but he extends the olive branch with her. Is there hope for these two? I feel like her getting rid of the scratch on the table signals the end for them.
DJ Nash: There’s a song that we put in that episode that I just love. There’s just this lyric in it that fits right over that shot. In fact, that sequence was written in conjunction with the song, and it was this idea that Eddie is getting in the way of Katherine moving on. We saw in her relationship with Alan, as he’s texting for the frozen ice guy, she is thinking that he’s cheating. The ghosts of her relationship with Eddie still paralyze her as she tries to move on. I think that’s a lot of what we’re following now which is, you’re right, when she sands that table she is making just big, drastic moves to show that she’s not the person she was before. Whether it’s cutting her hair really short with the clippers or sanding the table, Katherine from really the moment she was born lived life the way she should and how she ought to. What we’re going to watch next season is her take should out of her vocabulary and live life the way she wants to. And what that means and who she chooses to be with because of that, all that is still on the table. It’s a way that she’s going to live that she is determined to change.
Eddie has been through so much this season. But you talk about a card flip… at the end of the season, he gets that call from a woman saying that she’s the person who hit him. How will that phone call propel Eddie next season?
DJ Nash: I love our writers’ room. We have so many stories happening at once that it kind of was just when we got you to forget about that, it could come back. So as we were looking for cliffhangers for the end of our season, we talked about maybe having that call happened a couple of episodes before but we were like, no, this is the perfect way to end Eddie with this season. In fact, just as it seems as though he’s figured out the custody situation and on the heels of a couple of fun prank phone calls from other scam artists, he gets this call. Even Eddie is not expecting or anticipating the call that comes in. I think we’re going to see him have to process that. Does he become obsessed with figuring out who it is? Does that person identify and come into his life? Is that someone who knew him? It sounds like it was an accident, based on the way the woman carries herself in the phone call, but there’s so much to be seen. How does this unsettle some settled feelings he had about accepting what had happened to him? I think that happens in life, just when you think you can move past something, new information comes in that affects that. We’re certainly seeing that as Sophie felt a little bit more at peace with Peter at the end of the episode, we learned more information that may sort of stir the pot. So I think that’s certainly what’s happened with Eddie, and we are aware that his sobriety is tentative. I think we’re going to see Eddie and his strengths as a dad and as a person tested.
Tyrell has been such a great addition to the show. He finally learns the truth about his mother and how she got deported. Next season with Rome, Regina, and Tyrell, could they move toward adopting him? What’s in store for them?
DJ Nash: They won’t adopt him because he has a mother. I think we wanted to be very careful with our story. This storyline has been heavily vetted with Define American and our partnership with them as consultants on the show. So, no, they will not be adopting Tyrell. As long as more Tyrell’s mom is alive and well, they will not be adopting him, but they are charged with his care right now. I think right now they have a foster son who is feeling so much guilt. Guilt is a really interesting thing that has come up this season that I think is probably the theme that plays out with him next season. There’s healthy guilt, and there’s unhealthy guilt. Guilt can keep you from doing something. In Gary’s case, it didn’t. It actually caused him to do something. How you process your guilt and how much you should hold yourself responsible for actions and events is something every single friend in our friend group has to wrestle with the next season.