By the time Lady in the Lake ‘s finale comes to a close, the two women at the heart of the series have gotten what they wanted. Maddie has solved the murder (or so everyone thinks) of Cleo Johnson and made a name for herself as a journalist. Cleo has faked her death, escaped to Europe with her family and launched a new career.
And then there’s Ferdie, whose career and heart are in tatters thanks to his relationship with Natalie Portman’s Maddie.
What starts off as a casual, under-the-radar coupling — thanks in part to laws that made interracial relationships illegal — turns into something real for Ferdie and Maddie over the course of the season. At first, “there’s a convenience to the fact that he can’t be seen with her in public, which means that he doesn’t have to have any commitment to her, right?” Y’lan Noel, who plays the good-hearted cop in Apple TV+’s adaptation of Laura Lippman’s novel. “I think that’s the most interesting switch: That as he starts to fall for her, he starts to see this thing as something that he didn’t prior. And that’s where the wires and communication get crossed a little bit.”
We spoke to Noel — whose credits include Insecure and Xbox’s upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 — about how Ferdie fares in Episode 7 and beyond — and how his character figured prominently in a finale scene you didn’t see.
TVLINE | Maddie, for better or worse, is putting herself and her liberation at the center of everything and not really thinking about being in the Black community, as a white Jewish woman, in Baltimore at the time. Right.
TVLINE | She’s not thinking about how her investigation will affect Ferdie, how it’ll affect Cleo’s family. But while we get a strong sense of frustration with Maddie from Cleo’s voiceover, we don’t really feel that from Ferdie. Yeah. It’s interesting. I think that one of the things that Ferdie appreciates the most about Maddie is her tenacity, her zeal for the truth. I mean, Ferdie’s a cop, a beat cop who’s an aspiring detective, and he has to transcend this infrastructure that isn’t ready for him.
So, he has to, in his own way, have that same relentlessness. So, when they come together, there’s this explosion of curiosity and fascination with finding out the truth. While that is something that he’s attracted to, it does end up becoming an obstacle when she starts using the information and regurgitating what it is that, because of their romantic relationship, the information that she becomes privy to.
TVLINE | Right. He allowed a bit of that collateral damage to take place, because he’s fallen in love with the woman. So that resentment isn’t as palpable or voiced because of the fact that there’s so many other things, in his opinion, at the time, that outweigh that and transcend that. He’s thinking about a future. But at the same time, he is direct. He is telling her, like, “Maddie, you can’t do these things, you don’t understand what’s happening.” But rather than being an obstacle, he’s trying to sort of guide her, in a way, you know? Educate her a bit. That’s his perspective.
TVLINE | His face when she comes to his door near the end of the finale — my heart! Yeah. [ Laughs ]
TVLINE | When he leaves the diner and gives her his address, where do you think he’s at, mentally? Do you think he’s surprised when she shows up? It’s a huge surprise when she does. He’s a good cop because he’s a good man. Like, he is a good man. He understands that Maddie is finding her liberation here, right, that she’s a woman during this time.
Him being a Black man during this time, he understands what it’s like to be oppressed, and he’s like, “All right, you know what? I’m not going to be somebody who is going to weigh this woman down, I do love her, and I thought that she loved me. If this is something that’s supposed to happen, I’m going to live it to the world.”
… So, of course, he’s invested. And of course, he wants her to show up. But at that moment in time, he’s been through so much that he’s just like, “You know what, I’m just going to do my best, and however the cards sort of fall, that’s just what it is,” you know?
And then, when she shows up, that’s the thing that really frustrates him. Because he’s already this sore wound, and now, she shows up, and he can’t help but be optimistic that she… if she’s showing up, that that’s a positive thing.
… So, when it ends up being something that isn’t in his favor, he’s just like… “I’m going to fall on the sword here.” He’s constantly falling on the sword.
TVLINE | Do you think he ever read Maddie’s book? | Oh, he did. He did. There was this interesting scene that ended up getting deleted, where he shows up to her book signing. In the actual book by Laura Lippman, it alludes to the fact that he ends up — because of his certainty and inner peace, we always know that this is going to be a man that’s successful, right?
TVLINE | Yeah. We don’t get to see that throughout… But in the book, he becomes this very successful head of security, and he makes a lot of money. He does. He ends up being able to reascend the ranks to an even higher degree.
But he shows up to her book signing, and he speaks to her, and there’s maybe this moment of “Will they get together?” or whatever. But that ended up not making it into this series. I think it was that the director found it more effective to see all the different people that sort of Maddie left in her wake.
TVLINE | Did you guys shoot that? We shot that. [ Smiles ] I had a whole, it was like a graying beard. Ferdie, he wasn’t in cop blues. He was in like this really nice, tailored suit that we found. It was a whole situation, and he sort of walks off in the distance, and she walks up from the distance. [ Laughs ] So, yeah, stay tuned for deleted scenes.
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