For UnPrisoned creator Tracy McMillan, the goal of Season 2 of the Hulu and Onyx Collective series was to take the Alexander family from rupture to repair.
In Season 1 of the comedy series, Edwin Alexander (Delroy Lindo) got out of prison after a 17-year sentence for dealing drugs and moved in with his daughter Paige (Kerry Washington), who is a therapist and social media influencer. Paige had misgivings about letting her father around her teenage son Finneas (Faly Rakotohavana), but they ultimately decided to go for it so that her dad could have the best chance staying out of jail. The series is based on McMillan’s life experience.
“Season 1 was very similar to when my dad first got out of prison and we were encountering each other outside of locks, bars, guards, guns — outside of prison, and that was a completely different thing than how I had known him for the vast majority of my life,” McMillan told TheWrap. “Encountering each other on the outside, was a paradigm change.”
After Season 1 ended with Edwin trying to live apart from Paige, Season 2 will bring the family back together to navigate even more layers and themes. John Stamos — who was name-dropped in Season 1, entered the mix as “radical family healing coach” Murphy shortly after his name was suggested in the casting brainstorm, giving McMillan “a chill.”
“In season two, we are undertaking, ‘How are we going to be in a family, and how are we going to put the family back together? In season one they encounter each other in some ways for the very first time and in season two, it’s like, ‘Okay, you’re out of prison. Now, what?’”
McMillan shared with Deadline how John Stamos’ character Murphy magnifies the show’s themes, what Paige’s growth looks like this season and where the show might go from its cliffhanger ending.
DEADLINE: John Stamos was name-dropped in Season 1. How did he get cast in Season 2?
MCMILLAN: We — executive producing team, writers and I — were brainstorming on who is the right person to bring this character to life, to embody this character. When the name John Stamos came up, we were all like, ‘Wait a minute.’ I got a chill. He was interested. We sent over the material. I had a call with him two days later, and he signed on. He started shooting, honestly, I think it was the next day after our call, he did that first scene where they are on the local news show.
UNPRISONED – John Stamos
DEADLINE: How did you balance Murphy’s approach to therapy vs. Paige’s “clinical” therapy?
MCMILLAN: I mean as Murphy calls it, “corporate therapy.” I am a person who’s been in therapy the majority of my life, and I’ve been in many different types of therapy, and so I really wanted to show how sometimes the people who can help you the most are the people who are the least systemic. They’re the least enrolled in the current system. The system aspect reflects the systems that Paige and Edwin have been involved in, the foster care system, the criminal justice system. I thought it would be an interesting way to explore and that a person outside Paige’s system would be better at challenging her to look at the areas where she needed to do work. It’s very easy for somebody who has done as much work on herself as Paige has, obviously, I mean, she’s survived amazing things to become a very highly functional, high achieving woman, and yet she still has work to do, and that’s not something she’s entirely comfortable with at the at the beginning of season two.
DEADLINE: Murphy spotlights Finn’s anxiety. How does this plot point play into Season 2?
MCMILLAN: I wanted to take a compassionate approach and ground [the epidemic of anxiety in young people] in the family intergenerational trauma because I don’t think that every kid got there on their own. We have to look at families and family systems.
Finn is not just staying in his room because he wants to game so much. He’s staying in his room because it’s safer than the real world. I also wanted to draw some parallels between different kinds of imprisonment, different kinds of cells, prison cells, if you will. Being in your room, there’s something that Edwin doesn’t judge. He understands that, actually it can be very safe to be in in one’s room. It was bringing together things that are happening in the world in many families and the central premise of the show, which is, ‘how do we set ourselves free?’
DEADLINE: Paige’s cell shows up when her inner child comes out. How does she grow through the season?
MCMILLAN: The place where my dad’s long-term imprisonment affected me the most was in my romantic relationships, and Murphy basically presents that to her point blank in episode two. It’s easy, in some ways, to function highly at work. Work is an easier place in many respects to function, especially for somebody like Paige, who’s an authority. She has all the answers at work, and she has all the answers on her Instagram, but this is the area where she has the most trouble.
The very last thing I’ve been able to do in my life is form a secure, functioning partnership. I have done it now, but I want to show that arc like, how do you make these connections between my family trauma and challenges in my own life? For Paige, those challenges are romantic, so it made sense that as she starts to unravel what’s going on in the family, she starts to confront the places where it’s affected her the most, absolutely. And that’s season three, by the way, should we be so lucky.
DEADLINE: Speaking of that cliffhanger! How did you decide to end there?
MCMILLAN: It felt like a natural way to conclude season two. Once the family is repaired, and Paige knows she can count on her dad and he’s got his foundation, it made sense that that then would lead to her examining the other primary attachment relationship, her mother. It wasn’t something she would be able to do without having the support and grounding force of her dad.
DEADLINE: Who would you want to play Paige’s mom? How will that character fit into the Alexander family?
MCMILLAN: Angela Bassett, if you’re interested, we’re here for you.
It’s a great role. I really would want to base it on my own biological mother. She was humorous. She was outside the box. She was super smart. She was a very unique, one-of-a-kind person, and I didn’t know her well. I probably met her a handful of times in my life. I come from journalism. I’ve done a lot of reporting on who she was, and I think I would start there. I think she’s going to be just as surprising to audiences as Edwin is. Somebody who gives up her child. we think we know who that person is, and I want to surprise.
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