{"id":284660,"date":"2025-11-14T20:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/284660\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T20:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:15:08","slug":"hunting-wives-season-2-beast-in-me-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/284660\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hunting Wives’ Season 2, ‘Beast in Me’ Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers from Hunting Wives, The Beast in Me<\/a> and Murdaugh: Death in the Family<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are few actors having a better year than Brittany Snow<\/a>. A former child actor who rose to fame on the CBS daytime soap Guiding Light in the late \u201990s and on the NBC family drama American Dreams in the early aughts, Snow has re-entered the cultural zeitgeist for the first time since starring in the trilogy of Pitch Perfect films, the last of which premiered in 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress began the year with a short stint in the second season of The Night Agent<\/a>, where she played Gabriel Basso\u2019s FBI partner<\/a> who was tragically shot and killed<\/a> during a mission gone wrong in Bangkok. She then transitioned to a starring role in The Hunting Wives<\/a>, portraying a liberal transplant whose life is upended<\/a> after crossing paths with the licentious leader of a band of affluent East Texas housewives. This week, she can be seen back on Netflix as Matthew Rhys\u2019 elegant gallerist wife (who is more than meets the eye) in The Beast in Me, while also playing a journalist investigating a powerful South Carolina family in Hulu\u2019s Murdaugh: Death in the Family.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Snow, who admits that having four shows launch in one calendar year is serendipitous, the work she has done of late has allowed her to play against type. \u201cA lot of my career is definitely defined as being the good girl who people like, and I was very excited to play someone who is morally gray in a lot of areas,\u201d she tells The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most complex of those characters would be Sophie O\u2019Neil, the married mother she plays in The Hunting Wives who begins a lesbian love affair with Malin \u00c5kerman\u2019s Margo Banks \u2014 who happens to be married to the governor of Texas (Dermot Mulroney). After the soapy drama series became a viral hit over the summer due to its unapologetically provocative and steamy content, Netflix, who had initially acquired the show from Starz, quickly ordered a second season<\/a>, and is now just days away from beginning production in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe type of woman I was trying to play in season one was someone who was very stunted, very caged, very stoic. She didn\u2019t know how to process emotions very well because she wasn\u2019t really being true to herself,\u201d Snow says of Sophie. \u201cNow in season two, that door has been opened. She\u2019s killed someone. The crazy is let out a lot more because she\u2019s a danger to herself. I\u2019m very excited to get to play someone who now doesn\u2019t necessarily know how to keep herself enclosed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a wide-ranging chat below, Snow answers all of THR\u2019s burning questions about the three shows she has on the air right now. (Warning: Spoilers ahead!)<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first season of The Hunting Wives was so effective <\/a>that straight women were questioning their own sexuality when the show launched all of you into the zeitgeist over the summer. What have you made of the success of the show?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s been so surreal. We didn\u2019t think anyone was going to see it because it was originally for another network [Starz], and we were just having fun. So to see the response has been so humbling and crazy. But what\u2019s really been nice for us is that people have responded to the shock of it all. Here\u2019s two women \u2014 I\u2019m in my late thirties, Malin\u2019s in her forties \u2014 and we\u2019re doing things that are a little over the top and not necessarily seen [on TV], and people are feeling powerful because of that. The things I get choked up about and respond most to are people saying they feel represented, especially in the queer community. I feel like our job as actors is to make people feel like they\u2019re being seen.<\/p>\n

\n\tWho are some of the most surprising celebrity fans who have approached you since the show\u2019s debut?<\/p>\n

\n\tSo many. When we were at the VMAs, Ariana Grande came up to me and Malin, and it was surreal because we didn\u2019t know she was talking to us. She\u2019s so cute and petite, and she was like, \u201cCome over here to hang out with us!\u201d We took a picture together, and I just thought, \u201cWhat is my life?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYour chemistry with Malin Akerman has become a major selling point for The Hunting Wives \u2014 so much so that fans even speculated if you were dating at one point \u2014 and the two of you now represent this iconic lesbian TV couple.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s an honor. I just feel very, very grateful people have responded well to it and that they feel represented. I think that maybe it is a good marking of our acting and our connection that people think we\u2019re together. And if people want to surmise that, great. I\u2019m definitely all for it. (Laughs.) I welcome it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMalin Akerman and Brittany Snow in Netflix\u2019s The Hunting Wives.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKent Smith\/Netflix<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you feel pressure to keep your onscreen spark heading into season two? What exactly do you attribute to your chemistry?<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t really know if we\u2019ve put that pressure on ourselves because it did come so innately to us, so we wouldn\u2019t want to mess with a good thing. You\u2019re right \u2014 we are such good friends. We care about each other so much because we respect each other. We have fun. She\u2019s the type of girl I would regardless be friends with. We just click. So I don\u2019t know if I want to manufacture that or think about it too much. I think that type of friendship will not go away. We\u2019ll be in each other\u2019s lives forever; I will probably have her as a best friend for the rest of my life. So I think what people are responding to is like, \u201cOh, they genuinely get along and love each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve said Malin\u2019s openness to nudity helped you on set. How specifically did she help you feel more confident when filming your intimate scenes?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think that\u2019s a specific case, but in the overview of our experience, Malin is a very calming presence, and she\u2019s someone who doesn\u2019t overthink as much as I do. We\u2019re sort of our characters in that way. She\u2019s very clear in what really matters and what doesn\u2019t. I\u2019m more into the details of things: \u201cWhat if this happens?\u201d and \u201cI hope we can do this well.\u201d So with the intimate scenes, she reminded me that we\u2019re having fun and it\u2019s about us doing this crazy thing. We\u2019re never going to do something like this again later in our lives. That perspective really helps when it comes to those scenes, because it\u2019s not that big of a deal, and I don\u2019t need to get tied down in the minutiae of it all. I think that\u2019s why we balance each other out really well.<\/p>\n

\n\tAre there any things that are still off-limits for you when it comes to intimate scenes?<\/p>\n

\n\tDefinitely. There were things that were off-limits from the beginning as well. I\u2019m much more controlled than I thought I was going to be, in terms of what I wanted to show. Also, I didn\u2019t want shots in there that were going to be for shock value. It needed to feel real and true to life, but I wasn\u2019t wanting shots for no reason that were gratuitous. So maybe in season two we can have a little bit more agency. Maybe it doesn\u2019t need to be so bright in the scenes. (Laughs.) That\u2019s all I ask at this point. Can we just turn off a lamp and shut a curtain? Sophie needs to pull down a curtain, for my sake. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you know if there will be the same amount or more sex in season two, given that the second season will be made by Netflix as opposed to Starz (where there is more erotic content)?<\/p>\n

\n\tI wish I knew to get myself in the gym or something, but I don\u2019t know. All I know for sure is that we want to see more Margo and Sophie because they really are so problematic, and they are the reason that this show is crazy. So I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re going to do, but I know you will see more of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tA lot of viewers couldn\u2019t believe Sophie\u2019s actions in the finale, and how much she was willing to throw away for this woman she had just met. What did you make of her decisions at the end of season one, and what does it tell you about where she is headed?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think she\u2019s making these decisions because she\u2019s never necessarily chosen that life. She\u2019s a very stunted woman who has put herself in a box, and now that this cage that she\u2019s put herself in has been opened, she\u2019s really living for herself for the first time. You see in the flashback episode that that was the path, in a sliding doors type of way, that she could\u2019ve gone down. She chose the safer route [with her husband Graham, played by Evan Jonigkeit], which she didn\u2019t necessarily want, but she\u2019s afraid of herself, so she chooses the safer route.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think the decisions she makes at the end are a reflection of how she is a dangerous person. Now in season two, you\u2019re going to see the type of person she really is. Her decisions were [made from the perspective] of someone who is a lovestruck teenager falling in love for the first time. A lot of people can hopefully relate to that \u2014 maybe not to her decisions, but [in that situation] you\u2019re not thinking clearly, and obviously you\u2019re going for the person you love.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was the most difficult one of Sophie\u2019s choices for you to wrap your mind around?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe one that I really did not like \u2014 and I was very clear with [creator\/showrunner] Rebecca [Cutter] about this \u2014 was that she has this really intense conversation with Graham, and they\u2019re talking about their divorce and if they ever really loved each other. There is love there, and it\u2019s very nuanced because there is a friendship and a loyalty there, and they have this beautiful scene that was originally much longer, and we\u2019re crying. Then she goes directly to Margo\u2019s and has sex with her! (Laughs.) I was like, \u201cWhere is her child in this?!\u201d She didn\u2019t even get a snack in between \u2014 she just went straight into that. I was like, \u201cCan there be a buffer in between?\u201d But no, she didn\u2019t write that. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

\n\tHave you visited the writers room for Hunting Wives season two yet?<\/p>\n

\n\tI did! I asked to go in, and I wanted to pick their brain and see where it was going. I\u2019m not a writer or a producer, so I can\u2019t offer them my opinion necessarily, but I shared some ideas, and they can take them and throw them out, as I\u2019m sure they did.<\/p>\n

\n\tRebecca has described<\/a> Hunting Wives as \u201canti-prestige\u201d TV. She knows the kind of show she wants to make: a soapy, small-town drama with some satirical political commentary \u2014 and a whole lot of sex. The series has also taken on the culture wars in a way that was embraced by both sides. How much will season two be leaning into what worked season one in that respect? Do you know if the writers are planning to lean even further into hot-button issues?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s above my pay grade to say definitively what\u2019s going to happen because I am not a writer, but I do know that Rebecca is so much smarter than I think people realize. She knows what she\u2019s doing \u2014 she\u2019s always known \u2014 and the political aspect is very important to her as well. And showing in a fun way behind the curtain of a lot of things that are going on \u2014 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to stop, because I do think that was a part of her ethos of the show from the very beginning. I actually know that\u2019s not going to stop. So I appreciate when people realize that\u2019s a huge reason why it works.<\/p>\n

\n\tRebecca has said she has a multi-season plan for Hunting Wives. How many seasons do you hope to play in this world? Do you think Sophie can even survive that long?<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know! With her decision-making skills, I\u2019m not sure how she\u2019s surviving by now. (Laughs.) I think I would be so happy and honored, and the girls \u2014 Jamie [Ray Newman, who plays Callie]; even Katie [Lowes, who played Jill] who\u2019s dead, but we want her to somehow resurrect; and Malin \u2014 we say we would do this show for as long as they\u2019ll have us. I\u2019ll do this until Netflix kicks us off.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBrittany Snow as Nina in Netflix\u2019s The Beast in Me. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix<\/p>\n

\n\tIn The Beast in Me<\/a>, Claire Danes (who plays Aggie) and Matthew Rhys (Nile) said that they only had three scripts before filming, so they needed to take a leap of faith and hope showrunner Howard Gordon and his creative team would find a satisfying conclusion to this story. How much did you know about Nina\u2019s role in this story before signing on, and at what point did the team clue you in that your character was going to be a key part of taking Nile down?<\/p>\n

\n\tI read only the first two scripts when I got the audition for Nina. I knew because of the people involved that I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to make sure my audition was perfect, and I was grateful to be a part of it at all. Once we started creating the character arc, I had a lot of questions for [executive producer\/director] Antonio [Campos], Howard and Claire. Like, \u201cBut who is she, really?\u201d They were writing [the scripts] as they went, so they weren\u2019t sure. I had to play Mad Libs, because I had to fill in a lot of blanks. Luckily, a lot of the things I was thinking about and that I suggested, they took into account.<\/p>\n

\n\tI had a conversation with Daniel Pearle, who was our producer and writer, around episode five or six where I said, \u201cI\u2019m really used to being a woman who is underestimated, and it would really mean a lot to me if Nina could have some redemption in terms of how much she\u2019s underestimated in this show as well. Let\u2019s make her a little bit smarter than people think she is.\u201d I think he took note of that. I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s the reason they wrote it that way. I think they always had that in their back pocket, but because I advocated for myself, they knew I could rise to the challenge. I really appreciated that Nina had so many layers to her where, at the end of the show, you\u2019re left with many more questions than answers about her.<\/p>\n

\n\tNina tells Aggie early on that she worked at Nile\u2019s late wife Maddie\u2019s foundation for nine years, but Nina always seemed to know she could never compare to Maddie in Nile\u2019s eyes. There are moments throughout the series where Nile seems to undercut Nina personally and professionally, and she has to suppress what she really wants to do or say. How did those interactions inform your understanding of Nina and Nile\u2019s marriage? Do you think they really loved each other?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was a question I was asking Antonio from the very beginning, because I wanted to make sure their marriage was something that a lot of people could maybe relate to, and also be foreshadowing what\u2019s to come, even though we didn\u2019t necessarily know what was coming. But I said to Antonio, \u201cI think she\u2019s playing house in a lot of ways,\u201d which turned out to be correct. She\u2019s putting on this fa\u00e7ade that she has it all together and has always been very wealthy. Little by little, you start to peel back the layers and understand she\u2019s a survivor. She\u2019s working on a primal instinct to stay alive and get what she wants, just like everyone else in the show.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s ambiguous to the viewer, and I hope it poses questions. Was she morally altruistic in her decision, or was she doing it for her own survival motives? I think their marriage is transactional. They\u2019re both very fucked up people that meet eye to eye in a way where you can understand why they\u2019re together. The scene you\u2019ve seen where they\u2019re fighting and then [having sex in episode five] \u2014 you understand these are two very primal people who see eye to eye, and I\u2019m not necessarily sure that\u2019s love. That\u2019s a sparring partner.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are two big fights that Nina and Nile have that seem to lay bare the festering resentment in their marriage \u2014 their argument in episode five that leads them to have sex and results in them accidentally conceiving a child, and his confession in episode eight about killing Maddie and then Nina slapping him across the face and ultimately catching him on tape. How did those fights help you understand Nina\u2019s decision to turn on Nile in the end?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s fascinating because it was written as it was going along, [but those moments] were all these puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly at the end. Every time he undercut or undermined her, she saw herself as less of a partner, and she was disappointed in herself for choosing this type of role. Whether it was because of the art show [where Nile made Nina back out of a deal with Aggie\u2019s artist ex-wife, played by Natalie Morales, because of a conflict of interest], or because of how he speaks to her, or because he doesn\u2019t have enough respect for her to tell her where he is, everything lends itself to the ending where she takes matters into her own hands. She\u2019s not a woman, as you can see in the flashback episode [seven], who likes to be messed with or undermined. She\u2019s not a classy girl that came from money. She\u2019s quite the opposite.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the finale, Aggie \u2014 who has already been on the run from the authorities after Nile framed her for the kidnapping and murder of Teddy Fenig \u2014 ambushes Nina at her gallery and tries to convince her that Nile killed Maddie and was also responsible for Teddy\u2019s death. Nina doesn\u2019t shut Aggie down and is clearly thinking about how she can lure Nile into a confession when she returns home later that day. How did you think about playing that final fight?<\/p>\n

\n\tAntonio and I wanted to make sure it was clear \u2014 at least to me, if not the viewer \u2014 from the very beginning that I was going to be recording him the whole time. What was really hard about that scene is that I am manipulating him from the very beginning. I\u2019m very small; I\u2019m very contained. I don\u2019t want to anger him. I have to say what I need to say and get him to admit to it, but I have to play him in a way I know will work, which is [that] I can\u2019t make any sudden movements. It\u2019s almost like we were playing a jaguar and a prey situation \u2026 but all of that has to slowly build.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is a direct understanding \u2014 and Antonio and I talked about this a lot in preparing for the scene \u2014 that she\u2019s recording him, but she\u2019s also hoping it\u2019s not true. When people watch it again, I hope there is that [sense] \u2014 and maybe people can relate to this \u2014 where you know your person is maybe cheating on you, but you\u2019re praying throughout that you\u2019re wrong. I think that really is what Nina\u2019s hoping for, and yet the admission that she gets, she\u2019s luckily recording the entire time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s admittedly an opacity to a lot of Nina\u2019s decision-making by the end of the show. Off the top of my head, I still have a bunch of unanswered questions: Why did Nina look like she was trying to seduce Aggie, who is a lesbian, at multiple points in the show? Did Nina know Nile had killed Maddie years ago? What does Nina\u2019s life look like \u2014 with her and Nile\u2019s new baby! \u2014 after the screen fades to black? I don\u2019t think there are any easy answers to those questions by design.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think she does have reasons for how she acts towards Aggie. She uses sexuality as a technique to get what she wants. Because she\u2019s a survivor, she\u2019s known how to do this. So by the end of the show, you\u2019re starting to recognize that maybe this was her plan all along. Maybe it wasn\u2019t. Maybe she always knew she could get what she wanted, which was a baby and money and power. But we have to believe \u2014 and what I believe \u2014 is that she didn\u2019t know that Nile had killed Maddie. I don\u2019t think she would let herself believe that, and that was a really hard thing to play. Maybe subconsciously she did, but not consciously. So I was having to play the fact that maybe she\u2019s not as innocent as she seems, and yet she chose not to know about the murder.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSnow as Mandy Matney in Murdaugh: Death in the Family.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney\/Daniel Delgado<\/p>\n

\n\tThen for Murdaugh: Death in the Family, you spent a lot of time with Mandy Matney, the journalist you play in who is also an executive producer, and she has been nothing but effusive in her praise of your performance. How did your many conversations with her inform the way you thought about playing her as a character?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was such an invaluable asset to have the real-life person you\u2019re playing be around you all the time. You can ask her questions right away from little things down to, \u201cHow was your desk when you were at The Island Packet?\u201d to \u201cWhat was your thought process going up to this house, getting information from this source?\u201d What I told her when we had our initial conversation, which led to many more lunches, dinners and drinks, was, \u201cI\u2019m not interested in doing an imitation, and I will never be you. I will be a version of you.\u201d I studied her mannerisms, her behavior and specific voice, and then tried to come up with something that was the most like her essence. The fact that she\u2019s responding to that and thinking I did an okay job means the world to me, because it\u2019s so much pressure to create a character while you\u2019re doing the scenes in front of the real-life person.<\/p>\n

\n\tMost true-crime stories are solely focused on the crime, but much like the real-life Matney, your character is the audience\u2019s eyes and ears into the Murdaugh family. What do you think Murdaugh does differently in the true-crime genre?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think the difference between a documentary and a narrative show is that you get to use actors to bring forth the empathy and sensitivity to these people you wouldn\u2019t necessarily get in a documentary or a news article. A lot of times, these people were reduced to headlines. But this is showing the underbelly of what [Matney] went through \u2014 the adversity that she was met with, the judgment, and why this person had such an instinctive pull to this story. What\u2019s great about doing a show like this is that you get to show the emotional environment these people were in. What was different about this type of show is that we were very victim-focused, and we really wanted to shed a lot of awareness and light on the victims \u2014 Maggie, Paul, Gloria, Stephen Smith, Mallory [Beach] \u2014 and give them full, dynamic lives.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou are a self-professed true-crime junkie and have even revealed you tend to fall asleep while listening to stories about murder. You are certainly not alone in your love for the genre, but the influx of programming about true crimes has led to difficult conversations about the morality of telling these kinds of stories. What is your take on the ethical concerns of the true-crime genre, particularly as you tackle a case that is very much still in the public consciousness?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think there\u2019s a very fine line between glorifying the crime and spreading awareness of what happened and giving voices to the voiceless. Making it salacious and glorifying it is a totally different thing that I am glad Murdaugh didn\u2019t do. Part of the thing for me sometimes \u2014 and I\u2019ve realized this lately \u2014 is I watch true crime, and I know this sounds crazy, but sometimes it makes me appreciate life more. It makes me appreciate that\u2019s not my life, and I can be aware of these things. Whatever problem I\u2019m going through, it\u2019s not that [bad]. There\u2019s a duality to [true crime] that sheds a lot of light on the things we do have. Not to say that\u2019s the reason we should watch them, but for me, it does do that a little bit.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Beast in Me and The Hunting Wives are now streaming on Netflix. Murdaugh: Death in the Family is now streaming on Hulu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers from Hunting Wives, The Beast in Me and Murdaugh: Death in the Family.] There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,154031,134,164488,164489,16029,16833,427],"class_list":["post-284660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brittany-snow","tag-entertainment","tag-murdaugh-death-in-the-family","tag-the-beast-in-me","tag-the-hunting-wives","tag-the-night-agent","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}