The second season of Palm Royale is just around the corner.
It's been over a year since Maxine Dellacorte (Kristen Wiig) and Evelyn Rollins (Allison Janney) spared no expense to celebrate the Beach Ball's 50th anniversary and impress the guest of honor, President Richard Nixon.
Creator Abe Sylvia told TODAY.com after the first season that the Apple TV+ show was “always intended to be an ongoing series.”
“We have big dreams of where we can take this and all these characters,” he said at the time. “We're very hopeful. We have a rabid and excited fanbase, so I really hope we can do more.”
Now, ahead of the season two premiere, Sylvia told TODAY.com that in the new episodes he “wanted to continue to explore ideas of sisterhood and female friendship, and how women come together in times of adversity to make their way in the world.”
The finale of the first season of the series “Palm Royal” was filled with high fashion, Maxine's emotional musical performance, as well as lies, betrayal, attempted murder and… perhaps an unexpected death?
Over the course of 10 episodes, viewers watched as Maxine, a Chattanooga native and former beauty pageant contestant, made it her mission to infiltrate Palm Beach's high society and become one of them, despite her humble beginnings. With her husband Douglas (Josh Lucas) by her side – and the means and fashion of his wealthy and dysfunctional aunt Norma Dellacorte – she almost gets away with it.
It won't be an easy ride if you add Maxine love/hate relationship with bartender, pool boy and Norma's caretaker Robert Diaz (Ricky Martin) and a broken and then restored friendship with Linda (Laura Dern), who turns out to be Douglas' ex-fiancee.
Amidst the Beach Bash hype, many shocking secrets were revealed, hearts were broken and viewers were left with a wild cliffhanger.
With many questions left unanswered, stars Kristen Wiig, Josh Lucas, Kaia Gerber, Amber Chardais Robinson, and creator Abe Sylvia explain the Palm Royale season 1 finale.
What happens at the end of Palm Royale?
In the final episode, entitled “Maxine Throws a Party”, she and Evelyn join forces to throw the annual event.
Upset that the two have taken over her annual event and that Maxine and Douglas are trying to take her money, Norma (who has apparently recovered from her embolism) asks Robert to marry her so she can leave him everything when she dies. However, she tells him that he will have to choose between her and Maxine.
Astronaut Grant decides to leave after kissing Maxine and not having his feelings reciprocated. Since the invitees want to meet the astronaut, at Maxine's request, Robert dresses up and pretends to be him.
Dina's husband, Perry, is released from prison and surprises her with a beach ball. It turns out Perry is wearing a wire because Nixon wants an advantage in the next election and wants him to get closer to Dina's main donor/fiancé Axel Rosenhips.
Evelyn discovers that Norma is back in good health and may be up to something, including getting rid of Maxine. Maxine confronts Norma and tells her that she is turning her house into a nightclub.
Norma's life story is told at a beach ball, but some things don't add up. Robert asks Axel why things didn't work out with him and Norma before. Axel recounts how, after Norma's father died, she found her boarding school roommate dead under the stars. “Agnes was a diabetic,” he says. “They didn't live long in those days, at least not without a lot of money.”
Axel goes on to tell how he followed Norma back to Palm Beach, but she cut him out of her life. “She was a completely different person,” says Axel, which makes Robert worried and wonder who the real Norma is.
Mitzi, after confiding in Norma, tells Maxine that she is pregnant. Maxine tells Mitzi that she needs to tell the baby's father that he needs to marry her and take responsibility.
Things start to fall apart right before Maxine's performance of “Is That All There Is” when she is on stage and sees Mitzi approach Douglas, who turns out to be the father of her child. Norma smiles mischievously from the side of the stage.
Maxine breaks down as she tells her life story and how she fell in love before challenging Mitzi and Douglas to their affair.
Robert then approaches Norma and tells her, “I can't believe I considered spending my life with you, Agnes.” She asks why he called her that.
As President Nixon prepares to leave, Mary pulls a gun from her hairpiece and prepares to shoot him. Linda, who is trapped in her house with Virginia, tries to stop Mary. Instead of shooting Nixon, the bullet hits Robert.
As guests run out of the party in frustration, Maxine is grabbed by the Secret Service, Norma gets out of her wheelchair, Linda is found with a gun at her side, and Robert is seen on the floor.
Did Robert die at the end of “The Palm”?
The shocking moment for the audience is when Robert is unexpectedly shot. The last shot shows him lying on the floor. But is he dead?
“Well, we're not saying he does,” creator Abe Sylvia told TODAY.com. “It's a classic soap opera cliffhanger.”
Sylvia notes that in the last shot Robert is still breathing.
What's going on with Maxine and Douglas?
Sylvia says they plan to discuss the couple's “challenging future” in a potential second season.
“I think like many marriages that fall on hard times when one partner behaves horribly towards the other, it's not that easy to just walk away from a 20-year loving relationship,” he says. “I hope that we've built a complex relationship between Kristen and Josh's characters that people can really relate to.”
Lucas also told TODAY.com that he believes Douglas is still “head over heels in love” with Maxine.
“I think he loves her very much. I think he doesn't understand why she wants to go back to this place, which he thinks is terrible,” he says. “But then when he realizes he has employees and access to money that he didn't have, it just becomes a big challenge. A fun challenge for him. But I think he totally loves her.”
When asked why he thinks Douglas cheated on her, he laughs as if caught in a lie. The actor attributed this to “a lot of alcohol and a crazy night.”
What does Mitzi's future look like?
Gerber told TODAY.com that Mitzi “genuinely loves” Maxine, doesn't want to hurt her and “wants her situation to be completely separate.”
“I think in this situation Maxine is the person she would want to turn to for help and advice,” Gerber says. “That may be why she feels so isolated and why she makes decisions that she doesn’t even fully understand.”
Gerber hopes Mitzi can handle this difficult situation.
“I hope she's okay. I really feel for her. I hope she's learned her lessons, but unfortunately she's learning the hard way. It really devastated me that I had to leave things like that between Maxine and Mitzi,” she says, adding that Mitzi truly loved Maxine in her own way.
The actor and model said that “it broke her heart to see these two people that we see really care about each other and try to support each other… and you see them hurt each other. I think it was very painful. So I hope there's a possibility (of reconciliation).”
Who is the real Norma? Who is Agnes?
Sylvia says Norma and Agnes' big discovery happened a long time ago.
He points to episode nine, where Norma tells Robert that she needs “help with certain tasks, but she expects discretion, and it's about managing her diabetes. She didn't want anyone to know she had a weakness.” Her diabetes is mentioned later in the episode, where Robert tells Linda that Norma is diabetic.
According to him, in the eighth episode, Axel asks Norma why she became his ghost and that she became “a completely different person.”
“Really everything in the last three episodes led up to this revelation, which only Robert was able to put together because he knew Norma and her diabetes so well,” Sylvia explains.
“So when Axl says, 'Yes, Agnes, she was a diabetic, they didn't live long in those days.' At least not without a lot of money.” I think Robert isn't quite sure of himself until he says “Agnes” to Norma. She says, “Why did you call me that?” and then: “Oh my god, this secret might die with Robert.”
Sylvia noted the irony of Norma's secret because throughout the season, Maxine struggled to fit in and felt like an impostor.
“But Norma is the biggest impostor of them all,” he says.
Why didn't the police arrest Virginia?
Virginia finds Linda locked in the library of her home after Mary locked her there. When she opens the door, she is also locked inside. Linda asks her why she wasn't arrested along with the rest of their feminist group.
Robinson told TODAY.com “Virginia has worked really hard to get to where she is.”
“And these friends in high places will come in handy throughout the season. I can't say much about that. But I will say that she has connections,” Robinson teased.
The mystery continued when Sylvia simply added: “We'll have to wait and see.”
However, when pressed, he teased: “Virginia, like everyone else on this show, has secrets – and we're just getting started.”
