Robin Wright breaks down how to interpret ‘The Girlfriend’ ‘psychotic’ end

This article contains spoilers for The Girlfriend season 1.

There are monster-in-laws, and then there’s The Girlfriend.

After six increasingly twisty episodes in which the titular girlfriend, Cherry (Olivia Cooke), and her would-be mother-in-law, Laura (Robin Wright), engage in a chess match of dueling perspectives, paranoia, lies, and psychological warfare, the two women finally come to blows in their battle to be the one and only woman in Daniel’s (Laurie Davidson) heart.

In a confrontation at Laura’s house, Laura attacks Cherry and the two chase each other down to the pool. Laura seems to have the upper hand until a still-confused Daniel — whom she had drugged prior to Cherry’s arrival — wakes up enough to find his mother attacking Cherry. He ultimately saves Cherry by holding his mother underwater, drowning her.

The narrative skips forward to reveal that Daniel and Cherry are happily married and expecting their first child. While Cherry is out in the backyard with her father-in-law (Waleed Zuaiter), Daniel inadvertently finds his mother’s phone, which had fallen under some furniture in the deadly skirmish, and listens to a recording Laura had made wherein Cherry’s mom ominously tells her about the things Cherry does to people who won’t give her what she wants. The Prime Video series ends with a horrified Daniel looking at Cherry, who’s shown smiling at him with her hands calmly resting on very pregnant belly.

Here, Wright dishes to Entertainment Weekly about how she and Cooke always sought to add “more spice” to scenes, the nature of tricky mother-in-law relationships, why she won’t be wearing “three hats” on a production again anytime soon, and, yes, how to interpret that “psychotic” ending.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: In addition to starring, you directed several episodes this season and executive produced the show. How challenging was it to direct something like this, where you see entire plot lines from one perspective, and then you see the whole thing again in a totally different light from someone else’s perspective?

ROBIN WRIGHT: It’s a challenge to be doing all three things, but I love it. I love being a part of the nascent stage, which I’ve never had the opportunity to do until this show. I’ve directed things that have already been established and I had to follow suit with a protocol, which was also great. I got to learn so much being restricted in certain creative venues. But this was amazing. I got to develop it with other people and with writers that were coming on board after the fact and finding where can we amplify scenes that were in the book, but let’s just amp it up a little bit, because look at the competition that we have out there with all the content. Somebody was just telling me about this show called Hunting Wives.

Oh, yes, the Netflix show.

Yeah, so I’m going, okay, I’m going to watch that tonight. I was like, shoot, that’s competition! But you know what? You’re always trying to find something, but I also don’t want it to be so ludicrous. It’s not that kind of show. It is a psychological thriller, but it’s a psychological twist with dual perspectives and you can see from both perspectives, “I could buy that happening and I’m on her side, and then I’m on her side, and then I’m on her side.” And that was the whole intent, was just for you to flip back and forth because a lot of what happens is very human: When you are reacting to the way somebody did something to you, you actually believe they did something to you. But did they?

I’m glad you brought that up. I know that actors always say that it’s your job to empathize with your character, but did you personally find yourself changing allegiances as you went? Who do you feel like is the villain here?

Well, of course you have to believe in everything that your character does is right. And Olivia and I would laugh about that all the time. I said, we have to love who our people are, otherwise nobody’s going to buy it. So, in episode 2, Laura’s trying to basically just clear the air and say, just be you. I will accept you. Just show me you. So I think everything’s going to be hunky dory. And I reveal secrets, and then she blackmails me. So we all try, and this is life, where we all try and we go, oh, I do like this person, or this person is sweet and gentle and loves my son and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you start finding other things out and that’s when it’s game on, because it’s like, you let me believe I could trust you. So we were just always talking about the scenes that we were going to shoot tomorrow. What else could we add? What else? Just to give it some more spice. And we had so much fun doing it. We really worked well together, all of the actors, and they’re all so good and so professional, and they just absorbed notes like a sponge. It was amazing. We had so much fun working together.

You have two kids, so potentially two opportunities to be a mother-in-law yourself. Has this role changed the way you think about being a mother-in-law?

I think every mother feels that to a degree, the scrutinizing and you see one little tidbit that is displeasing to you and you’re like, “Nope, they’re not right. They’re not right.” I think that’s just historically true. Now, this show goes to the other end of the spectrum intentionally. It just takes it to [a level] that’s psychotic, but people can push you pretty far. Right? And we’ve all been pushed and we’ve all perceived things that didn’t happen that way. And you have to kind of follow that ebb and flow through the show relating yourself in life because we’ve all done it. We still do it. And that’s the human condition.

Let’s talk about that wild ending. One thing I thought was interesting is that, unlike the rest of the show, the final confrontation doesn’t get the perspective change. We just see it the once. What can you tell me about the decision to do it that way? And is that meant to make us wonder if the perspective we’re getting is actually what happened?

Yes and no because it is sort of… it’s left open. He’s in a state of he’s inebriated. Mommy did that to him. But from mom’s viewpoint, I just want to put him down for a nap time for 30 minutes while I go handle the [girlfriend]. So that’s Laura’s mother’s instinct. She wasn’t trying to hurt to hurt him, she just wanted him to be not stressed between these two women that needed to fight this thing out themselves. But from the outside it looks psychotic. And what he does at the end, he’s in a stupor. And when you’re in shock, because it is shocking what he witnesses between his girlfriend, the love of his life, and his mother, he doesn’t even know which way is up. So he’s going for the animal that he sees, which is his mother. In that moment, the animal is hurting my baby, my love. And he’s unconscious almost when he’s doing that act, he doesn’t even know. He thinks he’s just getting her to calm down under the water. So it’s tragic. Do these things happen in life? Probably, unfortunately. But it’s also where your psyche goes, and how you get into that tunnel vision. You can’t see anything outside of your tunnel. And that’s what happens in the end with both the women, and they’re both not going to give up. 

No, and it’s funny to me, because I felt this throughout the show, they’re so similar, the two women. It’s not a mystery to me that Daniel falls for Cherry because she really is just like his mom, even though neither one of the women would ever probably admit it.

In a perfect world, Cherry and Laura would’ve been really good friends. Having lunches together, shopping because they are so similar in their determination and will and being both alpha females and they’re both very comfortable being in the control seat.

What did you take away from the experience of making The Girlfriend, either personally or professionally?

I would like to take a little time off from working so hard, which I’m going to do for a minute. But other than that, I’m going to get ants in my pants in a few and be like, “I got to go. I got to do something. Let’s do something.” I don’t know if I’ll do the three hats anytime soon. It’s a lot. It was incredible, but I had an incredible team and crew around me, too, and I never could have done it without them. There’s no way. I would’ve died.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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