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SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the finale of FX‘s Grotesquerie.
It looks like Lois may never be making it to Florida after all.
The finale of FX’s Grotesquerie felt, in some ways, like the 10 episodes came full circle, with Niecy Nash-Betts putting aside her plan to start over in Tarpon Springs in favor of donning her detective hat again to try to solve the same gruesome crimes she’d been investigating in her liminal state — except this time, they’re happening in real life.
After Lois is called to the scene of a family brutally murdered and delicately placed around their kitchen table, she starts to become suspicious. But, when she finds herself back at the church altar, staring at a bloody recreation of the Last Supper, this time with her doctor (who was the church’s priest and, ultimately, the killer in the events that played out while she was in her coma), at the center, she knows she can’t flee to Tarpon Springs until she’s gotten to the bottom of this.
Meanwhile, the doctor who has been conducting interviews with Lois about her liminal state tries to convince her that she is the one doing the killing this time around. After all, she’s been losing track of time. And who else would even know about the nature of the killings from her comatose imagination besides the two of them?
For the record, Nash-Betts wants answers to all these questions and more, too.
She tells Deadline that “all things being perfect, we would have a Season 2 to unpack it. If not, that means me sitting at a dinner with Ryan [Murphy] for hours telling me where he planned on this story going.”
In the interview below, Nash-Betts unpacks the final episode with Deadline, speculates on Season 2, and reflects on Grotesquerie‘s social commentary, explaining why Lois is “one and the same” with Vice President Kamala Harris.
DEADLINE: The finale really casts doubt on Lois’ reality again. What do you make of it? Is she actually awake and alive?
NIECY NASH-BETTS: Yes, I believe everything that happened up until Episode 7 was in Lois’ coma. On the other side of that, of her being awake from the coma, someone, a copycat killer, has started to act out her dreams.
DEADLINE: So you don’t think Lois is the killer?
NASH-BETTS: No, I didn’t say that! I didn’t say who I think the killer is.
DEADLINE: Do you have a theory?
NASH-BETTS: You know, I think that in the Ryan Murphy universe, you always expect the unexpected.
DEADLINE: Very cryptic. What was your reaction to the final episodes when you read them for the first time?
NASH-BETTS: Oh, I loved it, because, as an artist, all the cast members got to play this duality. My daughter, played by Raven Goodwin, was portrayed to be one way — her mother wasn’t proud of her and she was wasting her life away when really she’s this high-functioning doctor with double degrees. The same was kind of true for every character. Sister Megan, played by Micaela Diamond, was a nun. And in real life, she’s the chief of police. So we all got to live in this world where, as an actor, the dream is to be able to play multiple sides of a character. So this was absolutely delicious for us.
DEADLINE: How was it to switch up the dynamics between all of these characters halfway through the season? They all have completely different relationships than what was first presented.
NASH-BETTS: Let me tell you, we loved it. What we love the most about it is giving Travis Kelce a hard time with that mullet. Everybody thought [Eddie] was so suave and so cool, but it was like ‘Uh uh. Not in real life.’
DEADLINE: Now that you can fully speak about his character, what was it like working with him in that sort of dual-character capacity?
NASH-BETTS: Oh, it’s great being able to lean into the duality of it all. I definitely am a strong supporter of Travis and any new actor. You want them to win. You’re rooting for them. So, just being able to even watch him look at himself looking so different… I posted a little BTS of him and his cowboy boots and his mullet. I was like, ‘Boy, you look like you need to be riding the tractor.’
DEADLINE: How did you navigate figuring out the type of person Lois is after coming out of this coma?
NASH-BETTS: Lots of conversations with Ryan Murphy to understand her mental state, where she is now. What does all that mean? Is she still drinking? Or is she in her recovery? So many things had to be unpacked. What is the root cause of her feeling like she’s going crazy and checking herself into the mental hospital? All of those things, we just had to have a lot of conversations about them to make sure we tapped into the right cruising altitude for Lois and her awake life.
DEADLINE: I found Lois and Marshall’s relationship to be so interesting. It is so contentious after she wakes up. How did you work with Courtney [B. Vance] to figure all of that out?
NASH-BETTS: It’s interesting, because not just Courtney, but Lesley Manville, who played Nurse Redd as well. We have very different relationships in our waking life. You think Marshall is on life support and in a coma, only to find out it’s Lois who’s in the coma — and how contentious his relationship is with her, and how he really views her. Courtney is such a good guy, the times where he used to have to say mean things to me, I mean, I just will start laughing, because I’m like, ‘Who are you? You’re not even this person.’ We get along great. We’ve worked together in a couple of projects before, but we never had to be mean to each other. So at the end of us having to be mean, we were always like, ‘You okay? You good?’ Because it just didn’t even feel right.
DEADLINE: So, in the finale, Marshall suggests to Lois that they and Redd all move in together.
NASH-BETTS: Did you see that?!
DEADLINE: What did you make of that scene?
NASH-BETTS: I was like, ‘What is going on?’ But, you never know. Some people probably are living that life. I just know, for Lois, in that moment, she was like, ‘All of you, get the hell out of here.’ With all sincerity, in her waking life that her husband said, ‘Can we all live here together?’ You know, it was crazy.
DEADLINE: I find it really intriguing that, even at the end, audience members are still left to question what is real and what isn’t.
NASH-BETTS: I’ve had so many people call me and say, ‘What is going on? I don’t understand what happened. Wait a minute. Is this real? Is that not real? Wait, what happened?’ So I’ve had a lot of people try to wrap their minds around it and theorize what they think. There are some groups that are all dialed in and have these big chat rooms dedicated to the show and their theories in the show. I feel like we definitely set our ending up for a season 2 for audiences to stay on the ride.
DEADLINE: So, you think there is room for more?
NASH-BETTS: Absolutely. You don’t even know who Grotesquerie is yet. That’s a huge unanswered question.
DEADLINE: Are there any unanswered questions that you want to address in a potential Season 2?
NASH-BETTS: The main thing that I think I’m looking forward to is who is Grotesquerie, because right now in therapy, the doctor says Grotesquerie is an amalgamation of all of the evils that have happened in the world in [her] mind, but then these crimes start to happen, literally. So wait a minute. So then, what does that mean? There still are a few questions I’m waiting to have answered, and all things being perfect, we would have a Season 2 to unpack it. If not, that means me sitting at a dinner with Ryan for hours telling me where he planned on this story going.
DEADLINE: So, you don’t think Lois is going to Florida?
NASH-BETTS: I do not. I do not think that, not after she stands flat footed after coming out of the mental hospital and says to Cranburn and says to Megan, ‘Meet me in my old office. I know who the killer is.’ I don’t think she’s going to ever make it to Tarpon Springs anytime soon.
DEADLINE: How was your experience as an executive producer, being able to give more creative input on the series?
NASH-BETTS: Ryan is a wonderful collaborative partner. So, we worked together on everything from thoughts about storyline to casting to maybe reshaping things after we shot something. And it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, this is pointing me in this direction,’ or ‘Maybe there’s a shift that we can make here.’ What are Lois’ levels of drunk? Is she plastered? Is she hungover? Where is she in her disease? So we were hand-in-hand and collaborated quite a bit. I love that I’m Ryan’s new muse.
DEADLINE: What were a few of your favorite hints or Easter eggs that Lois was in a coma, prior to the reveal?
NASH-BETTS: The two that stand out to me are when my daughter Merritt is filming her video for a TV show, and you see an orderly just walk through the frame. It takes Lois’ attention away. And then she’s like, ‘Wait, what?’ And then when she’s having a conversation at her desk with Sister Megan, and the beeping of the printer sounds like the beeping of the machine that she was hooked up to.
DEADLINE: This series is rife with commentary about the current state of the world. How does it feel to have the finale airing just a week before a very consequential presidential election?
NASH-BETTS: We do touch on a lot of subjects. We touch on climate change. We touch on women having agency over their own bodies. We touch on different types of evils that exist in the world. And in many ways, I feel like Lois and Kamala [Harris] are one and the same, both trying to save the world from evil.
