SPOILER ALERT: This post contains plot points from all of Elle Season 1, now streaming on Prime Video.
Though the occasion is technically Winter (In)Formal in Prime Video’s Elle Season 1 finale, it serves as more of a homecoming for the main heroine, portrayed by Lexi Minetree.
After a quick trip to Los Angeles that convinced Elle that her place was really in Seattle, she made it back in time to attend her new high school’s end-of-the-semester celebration. It was important that she was there to support her new friend Liz (Gabrielle Policano), who performed a couple of songs in front of her peers. While there, Elle bumps into Dustin (Zac Looker), one pointy end of Elle’s love triangle, and they share a kiss. Unfortunately for Miles (Jacob Moskovitz), the other point in said love triangle, he witnessed the whole thing.
Those on the edge of their seats after several cliffhanger moments in the finale of Elle’s freshman season need not worry too much. All the loose threads will get picked up in Season 2, which has already wrapped production.
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“We pick up in Season 2 right after Season 1 ends. So the cliffhangers that we’ve left you with in Season 1, you will not have to wait long to see how those are going to be resolved,” showrunner Laura Kittrell told Deadline.
Though Elle first fled Seattle when convinced she would never fit in, she realized, similarly to her mother Eva (June Diane Raphael), that they both kept running away from their problems. Both mother and daughter have their coming-of-age moment in Season 1, figuring out where they truly belong.
Kimberley French/Prime Video
“We get to see that Eva loves her daughter so much and loves being a mom. It’s a beautiful representation of a mother-daughter relationship that is fueled by love, but also complicated at times,” shared Raphael.
“As much as Elle’s trying to figure out her place in Seattle, Eva is even more a fish out of water and struggling to acclimate. I also think for so many women in 1995 who gave everything to their families at a certain point in their 40s, they look up and wonder what’s next for them,” Raphael added.
When Elle and her parents return to the home of Starbucks, it is evident that the Woods’ only daughter has embraced more of the culture than anyone could’ve expected. First, she rocks space buns in her hair, and later, Elle got comfortable in the pink flannel that Liz got her—she’s ready for her new life.
“I think a fundamental part of who Elle is as a character is this lightness and joy and this optimism. So, we wanted to make sure, even if we were having her be a fish out of water, we were never taking away the core of who she is as a person,” Kittrell said. “We have her learning from Seattle, and the kinds of things that our characters care about, and how they view the world. But we never wanted to give her those lessons and take away who she fundamentally is.”
Added Lauren Neustadter, Hello Sunshine’s President of Film and TV, “There’s a very subtle love letter to teens in this idea. The experience of being a teenager is so universal, and when you are at that moment in high school, you just want to be like everybody else. The fact that Elle stays in her pink and she sticks to her own instincts is a really nice reminder to the next generation that it’s okay to be yourself, even if you’re different. That’s so much the essence of who Elle was in the original movie, and it’s at the heart of who she is in the show.”
Kimberley French/Prime Video
And who better than Liz, who exemplifies staying true to oneself, to inspire the new kid in school. Their relationship will be further explored in Season 2, as well as Liz and Kimberly’s (Chandler Kinney) secret love connection.
“Something that I love in shows where you have a character coming into the pilot, who wasn’t previously there, is when other characters acknowledge that they had a life before that person,” Kittrell said. “So something that I always loved about the Liz and Kimberly relationship is that they had something that Elle and the audience would discover over the course of the season. It was true to them and made them feel more lived in, and like they had lives before she appeared.”
The finale also teased troubled waters for Eva and Wyatt (Tom Everett Scott), Elle’s parents who are currently at odds due to the move and growing pains.
“It was important to us to make them feel like real characters, and also like they had lives off-screen when Elle wasn’t around,” Kittrell noted. “I personally thought a lot about Gilmore Girls, which was a show that I watched with my mom in high school. When I went to college, she and I would have check-ins once a week, where we would talk about the episode of Gilmore Girls that had just aired. So thinking about mothers and daughters getting to have that same experience within our show is something we’re all excited about.”
Speaking of Scott, he went back to his musical roots (Hello, That Thing You Do! fans) and sang the 1995 hit Oasis track “Wonderwall” while simultaneously playing it on an acoustic guitar in the third episode.
“Yeah, when I saw that on the schedule, I knew I was gonna have to learn that song; I got a little nervous. It would be different if it was a drum solo. I never had to sing for anybody before, so I was a little nervous,” Scott, whose character in That Thing You Do! played drums, revealed.
Regarding what we can expect in Season 2 from Wyatt and Eva, mum’s the word.
“It’s a big mistake, but we can’t really tell you what happens,” Scott added.
