🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
Showrunner Gregg Mettler had one goal when writing the season finale of That ’90s Show: “To leave things as satisfying as possible between Leia and Gwen, but as messy as possible with everybody else.”
Things got messy indeed, as 15-year-old Leia Forman (Callie Haverda) bonded over heartbreak and then almost kissed her next door neighbor Nate (Maxwell Acee Donovan) — who has a girlfriend, by the way — after boyfriend Jay (Mace Coronel) wanted to split for the school year, when she returns to Chicago from Wisconsin. Long-distance relationships are hard, especially if you’re teenagers living in different states in 1995 (read: no internet). Leia’s parents Eric (Topher Grace) and Donna (Laura Prepon) should keep an eye on their phone bill… At the end of the season, Jay and Leia plan to stay together — if she can keep her mouth shut about her close call with Nate.
The writers and Mettler spent a lot of time cracking the major twist, trying to execute it in a way that viewers would be excited to see through. A love triangle with two sweet jocks isn’t the worst thing for Leia to experience — in fact, it’s pretty major for a bookish teen just beginning to come out of her shell.
On one hand, there’s her summer-fling-and-maybe-more Jay, son of That ’70s Show favorites Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) and Jackie (Mila Kunis). “[Jay] has learned through the season to not take his friends for granted,” Coronel tells Tudum. “I think he’s really going to miss Leia when she goes, but at the same time he needs to get his priorities straight as far as how he treats his romantic interests. Objectively, I do think Leia should probably go with someone else just because Jay is a Kelso man, and there’s sort of a Kelso curse in Point Place, Wisconsin. I don’t know if any woman is safe [from heartbreak] in Point Place, Wisconsin with the Kelsos.”
On the other hand, there’s Nate, who also happens to be the brother of Leia’s best friend Gwen (Ashley Aufderheide) and in an extremely devoted relationship with the supersmart Nikki (Sam Morelos). Nate and Leia didn’t spend too much alone time together until the end of the season, when they surprise viewers — and themselves — by nearly kissing.
“Nate is the key to this whole operation,” Mettler tells Tudum. “Nate is connected to [sister] Gwen, he’s connected to his best friend [Jay], he’s connected to [girlfriend] Nikki. He’s so sweet and good-hearted that if he and Leia were to stumble into a moment, boy, that would be something. Not only would that throw a wrench into the works, it would be emotional too.”
During their romantic moment, Nate and Leia “connect and learn that they are a lot more alike than they realized,” says Haverda. “I don’t know if it’s really going to go anywhere. I’d be interested to see if it does, how that would happen, because they’re both hopeless romantics. I think that relationship would be cute.”
Donovan is also interested in exploring Nate and Leia’s chemistry. “Nate’s not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. He’s very confused and not even sure what to make of it, but he knows that he felt something there and he doesn’t want to shut that down,” he says. “He wants to see what it could be.”
There’s also a third option: herself. Leia could pull a Kelly Taylor, who famously proclaimed “I choose me” when finally deciding between the hunky Brandon or the hunky Dylan on Leia’s favorite teen soap, Beverly Hills, 90210. That’s what Haverda hopes to see.
“Honestly, I want to see Leia grow on her own without these relationships,” Haverda explains, “and find herself before she jumps into another thing with one or the other.”
That ’90s Show is streaming now on Netflix.
