‘Parish’ Boss Says Gray Still ‘Has a Lot of Business Left’ After Season Finale

Gracian Parish (Giancarlo Esposito) is out for justice for his late teen son Maddox (Caleb Baumann) in the explosive May 5 finale of AMC‘s fast-moving thriller, Parish.

“He goes after the person he really holds responsible,” says Eduardo Javier Canto, who executive produces alongside Ryan Maldonado. “And there’s a cost to that.”

Will that cost lead to Parish’s moral bankruptcy? That’s always been the question for this former getaway driver turned legit businessman who was pulled back into a life of crime by his old friend and ex-con Colin (Skeet Ulrich) for a “one time” gig. Instead, Parish became a driver for a Zimbabwean crime lord, The Horse (Zackary Momoh), and was soon entangled with the man’s infighting family, the Tongais, who are human traffickers. Complicating that, corrupt tycoon Anton (Bradley Whitford), someone from Parish’s criminal past, arrived and demanded he betray The Horse.

Alyssa Moran/AMC

Parish has survived gunfights, car chases, the kidnapping of his family, and nonstop tension as heavy as the sultry, humid air of New Orleans, where the story takes place.  Still, “Gray hasn’t taken a life all season. Part of his agenda is to get away without having to get his hands dirty,” Maldonado says.

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But you almost wouldn’t blame Parish if he resorted to deadly force after everything that happened in the April 28 penultimate episode. To keep his family safe from Anton, Gray moved them into hiding. He came clean to his daughter Makayla (Arica Himmel) about his criminal past, which his wife Rose (Paula Malcomson) knew only a little about. In a painful reckoning, he faced the truth about how troubled Maddox was, and blamed himself for his son’s death. He burned down his own house, a symbol of his settled, law-abiding life. If that wasn’t enough, he entered another deadly deal with Horse who offered information on Maddox’s killer in exchange for a “favor.”

Beware of favors for the Tongais! But Parish is ready to turn the tables. Maldonado teases, “It [is] kind of a poetic justice. When you get to Episode 6 and you see the way he decides to throw it back at them, he’s become the curse on this family. We really wanted to be kind of a nice mirror from Episode 1 [when he’s at their mercy] and 6.”

And although much is wrapped up in the final hour, Gray’s last move will leave you wondering what’s next for this damaged soul. Says Maldonado, “We wanted the finale to scream, ‘Gray has more to tell, a lot of business left.’”

Parish, Season 1 Finale, Streaming Now, AMC+