‘Lady in the Lake’ Boss Explains Book Changes, Deleted Finale Scene & Juxtaposing Maddie and Cleo’s Stories

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Lady in the Lake Season 1 finale, “My Story.”]

Lady in the Lake‘s finale brought together Natalie Portman‘s Maddie and Moses Ingram‘s Cleo for one wild twist as it was revealed Cleo’s friend Dora (Jennifer Mogbock) was the woman discarded in the lake.

Believed to be Cleo, she used her friend’s body, rendered lifeless after a lethal overdose to help aid her escape from the clutches of Shell Gordon (Wood Harris) and associates. When she realizes that Maddie’s investigative reporting could mess up her escape plan, Cleo seeks the woman out, promising to provide evidence to take down Shell and his criminal operation as long as Maddie agrees to stop investigating her “murder.”

Ultimately, Cleo is successful in her infiltration of Shell’s business, and delivers the evidence to Maddie, giving her a big journalistic win. As the women move forward down their differing paths, Cleo is able to settle down with her family in Paris where Dora was meant to go and pursue her singing career. Meanwhile, Maddie embarks on her writing career, becoming quite successful, but opting out of her romance with cop Ferdie (Y’lan Noel) to maintain her independence.

Below, showrunner and series creator Alma Har’el discusses the paths of Cleo and Maddie, differences from the book that inspired Apple TV+’s drama, and what scene didn’t make the final cut.

 

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Following the shock of learning Cleo is alive, the finale episode opens with a flashback featuring her and Dora in the 1950s. Why did you choose to include that sequence?

Alma Har’el: The twist of Cleo being alive is in the book, but I felt that the book left us feeling hungry to know more about Cleo — what [are] her dreams and what happened to her? — which is something that we never get to learn in the book. The book is very much only focused on Maddie’s perspective, and in the writers’ room, we were in love with Cleo and very much wanted to make sure we told her story and Dora’s story.

When Maddie meets Cleo at the end of the episode, she mentions how she’d think they’d be friends to which Cleo doesn’t agree. Why was it important for Maddie to hear that?

I mean, the show starts with a narration by Cleo and the first sentence of the whole show is “Until the lion tells the story, the hunter will always be the hero.” I think in many ways the show is about that, about Maddie understanding that she’s the hunter and that the lion and her are never going to share circumstances. It’s also obviously dealing with the fact that in the ’60s, many women, specifically Jewish women and immigrants, came into this country [in] pursuit of happiness and the American dream. Our show deals with the dreams of women, the dreams of immigrants, the dreams of Black folks who made an economy out of their dreams only to then be arrested for it and see it turn into the lottery. So you kind of see Maddie going through this whole journey, feeling like she’s simply following her dreams and fighting for her own survival but becoming really blind to the struggle of others and to the different circumstances that shape that struggle. I think it’s kind of a bookend to really her understanding that.

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Has Maddie found peace by the end?

I think I leave it open-ended, and every person can interpret that. I don’t know what happened to Maddie afterward, but I know that at that moment when it ends, she understands that she’s made some choices and was part of a moment that she didn’t fully understand when she was operating inside of it. And when she looks out into the street, she sees the stand of the lottery. And that state lottery, to me, is a really strong symbol of everything I spoke about in the show because at the end of the day in America, no matter how big your dreams are, at some point you’re going to come against the reality of the market, of the money. The color that really matters is green.

How important was it to juxtapose Maddie’s relationship with her son as opposed to Cleo’s heartwarming reunion with her eldest son?

I think that it’s sort of a juxtaposition of womanism and feminism, if you may, where womanism was always more inclusive of the family and the community. And feminism was a lot more focused on women’s rights and women’s goals, and specifically white women’s goals. So I think that there’s a juxtaposition here between two women who go through a certain struggle and make different choices in how they position themselves. One is willing to sacrifice herself for everybody. One has been so traumatized and so hurt by the men in her life and lost something that she can’t recover.

 

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Y’lan Noel who plays Ferdie informed us there was a scene between himself and Natalie Portman that was cut from the ending. Can you tell us a little bit about the moment and whether or not you think Maddie and Ferdie would have worked out in the future?

There was another scene that was filmed that is actually from the book. It’s not exactly from the book, but in the book, there is a scene where Maddie goes to some event at a point where she’s considered a very established writer, and she sees Ferdie there, and he’s done well for himself in the security business, private security. He’s married, he has a few kids, and she kind of sees him across the room and they don’t talk to each other. But we had this scene that we filmed where he comes to her book reading and he waits for her outside. And I thought that it was taking away from the focus on the two women, the juxtaposition between them. And I didn’t feel that it was adding much to what we already knew.

Related

'Lady in the Lake' Star Y'lan Noel Explains Ferdie and Maddie's Ending

I think that Ferdie and Maddie managed to connect and meet at a point in a junction that was really important to both of them. And I think that Maddie was careless as she is throughout the show, unaware of the consequences of her actions for her Black friends. And Laura Lippman who wrote this book, the way she described it was that Maddie was somebody who was benefiting from Black pain. And I think that the book, when Ferdie and her separate, goes even deeper into why she can’t make that leap and stay with him, even though he’s probably her chance for a very deep love. What we explore in the show is how the reality closes.

Lady in the Lake, Streaming now, Apple TV+