Scott Speedman as James Chenoweth Mark Hill/PEACOCK
The first season of Peacock’s Teacup ended with a shocking twist — but what does it mean for the horror show’s future?
During the season 1 finale, which was released on Thursday, October 31, Maggie (Yvonne Strahovski) and James (Scott Speedman) realized someone on their Georgia ranch was possessed by an extraterrestrial being that was threatening their existence. They later thought the threat was defeated, but it inhabited James instead.
James decided to save the other members of their group — Arlo (Caleb Dolden), Meryl (Émilie Bierre), Nicholas (Luciano Leroux), McNab (Rob Morgan), Ellen (Kathy Baker), Ruben (Chaske Spencer) and Donald (Boris McGiver) — by sacrificing himself. James instructed Maggie to lock him in a freezer, which would kill both the mysterious alien entity and him.
“I will say that Scott’s character, he is gone. He did die in that freezer,” creator Ian McCulloch exclusively told Us Weekly about James’ fate. “He did suffocate, as his daughter said.”
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In an attempt to ensure James didn’t die in vain, the group of survivors left their isolated ranch hoping to find other people to help them fight the alien invasion.
“No one is safe. No one is safe because the story is going to dictate who lives, who dies, where things go,” McCulloch continued. “So no one is safe [moving forward].”
Caleb Dolden as Arlo Chenoweth and Scott Speedman as James Chenoweth Mark Hill/PEACOCK
McCulloch is hopeful for a second season, but he hasn’t planned out what’s next. “I don’t know where it goes, because [Peacock] hasn’t told me we get to do more and it would break my heart to know where it was going and not get to do it,” he explained. “So I try to keep that as a mystery to me. Also, that’s the way I write. I like to write and discover as I go along, so that I’m the first audience member. I see these things happen.”
Drawing inspiration from Robert McCammon‘s book Stinger, the first season of Teacup hinted at an extraterrestrial takeover killing animals and humans alike in rural Georgia, but there are still plenty of questions that need to be answered.
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“It would be silly to say we’re not going to ever use anything from the book because there’s so much good stuff in there,” McCulloch continued, telling Us that the author “loves” what’s been done on the show. “It’s just whether it fits into this version of that story moving forward.”
While reflecting on creating the series, McCulloch broke down why some viewers might think Teacup feels more like a horror film than a TV show.
“It’s very astute that it feels like a movie because that is the idea of the shorter episodes,” he explained. “It is not only because we want to leave the audience wanting more — so they move on to the next episode — but there’s an economy of storytelling. In the end, it should feel like a single piece, which is what a movie is.”
McCulloch said it “was very much by design” that each of the eight episodes were fast-paced the entire time.
“We didn’t have any extra fat [with the stories]. After a while, you can’t just tell one thorough story, you have to go off on some different avenues. We didn’t want that sort of experience. We wanted people to just keep going and keep going,” he continued. “While at the same time, you want to make sure that you’re not throwing things in just to do a twist or a turn.”
He concluded: “You want [viewers] to have it feel like an experience that they want to get back to. It’s a single experience as opposed to, ‘I watched an episode and now I’ll go off and I’ll come back in a month or two and watch another one.’ I want them on the edge of their seat throughout the season.”
Teacup is currently streaming on Peacock.
