🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
Rob Lowe knows exactly what he finds most unsettling about Unstable’s unlikely antagonist.
“The notion of somebody evil playing the harp just doesn’t seem right to me,” Lowe, who stars as biotech billionaire Ellis Dragon on Unstable, tells Tudum.
Of course, Lowe is talking about the harp-loving Jean (Christina Chang), who was best friends with Ellis’ late wife, part of a harp-flute duo with his son Jackson (John Owen Lowe) and sat on the board of Ellis’ company. Given all of that history, Ellis assumes Jean is an ally and would never plot against him. Yet in the Season 1 finale, Ellis and Jackson discover that Jean has called a late-night board meeting to vote Ellis out of his own company — with the help of Leslie (Fred Armisen), the therapist Ellis kidnapped at the beginning of the season.
Thankfully, at the very last minute Ellis and his lab team make the scientific breakthrough they’d been working toward, creating concrete out of carbon — thereby saving Ellis’ position… for now. Instead of Ellis getting the boot, he fires Jean from the board.
Despite all the emotional breakthroughs Ellis manages throughout the season as he works through his grief over the death of his wife, Ellis might not be as stable as he seems: In the last moments of the finale, Ellis sets Jean’s car on fire and walks away grinning as it bursts into flames.
“This is an ensemble comedy and it felt like this was an ensemble ending,” says Rachel Marsh, who plays lab scientist Luna, of the finale. “They figured it out together. It’s about Rob and Johnny and that’s what the show should be about, but also it’s about teamwork and collaboration. And I really felt like the ending showed that in a really fun and creative way for them.”
Below, the cast of Unstable discuss that big bad twist, Jackson and Luna’s romantic breakthrough and more of the biggest developments of the season.
Throughout Unstable Season 1, it’s clear someone is working against Ellis and wants to see him removed as CEO of the Dragon company. At first, it’s possible that the twins TJ (Tom Allen) and Chaz (John Parr) are the culprits. But, TJ and Chaz are far too bumbling for that — and they becoming begrudging pals with Ellis by Episode 5.
Jackson stumbles into the truth at the beginning of the finale when he finds Leslie at Jean’s house. Jackson thought he could beg Leslie to push the upcoming board meeting — but it immediately becomes evident she’s the one planning the coup. Jean explains that she finds Ellis’s behavior erratic following his wife’s death and she wants to put herself in charge to lead the company.
Jean’s heel turn was an easy decision, explains Rob, who co-created Unstable with John Owen and Victor Fresco (Santa Clarita Diet). “We needed to have a turncoat, and we needed somebody to bring the season-long arc of whether Ellis was going to lose his company to a conclusion,” he says. “We also wanted to have yet another person who Jackson trusted really only be interested in him to get to his dad. It was about more than the flute, as it turns out.”
In fact, did she even support his woodwind career? “As far as we know she did,” says John Owen. “But deep down she may not have.”
At the start of the season, Jackson goes on a date with lab colleague Ruby (Emma Ferreira), but their romance quickly fizzles. And, in Jackson’s final scene of Season 1, he smooches Luna, bringing the pair’s clear romantic connection to fruition.
Coming into Unstable, Marsh hoped her character wouldn’t be “just a nerdy Asian girl stereotype.” Luckily, she says, “this show did a really good job of fighting against that and giving Luna the agency to change and to grow in her personhood throughout the season. Luna has agency and also she has a fun relationship by the end of this.”
Luna might be shy and awkward, but she was finally able to stand up for what she wanted. And it shouldn’t have any effect on her best friendship with Ruby. “Ruby is in a place in her life where she wants to have fun and expand her world in all aspects, and her interest in Jackson is an extension of that,” says Ferreira. “Luna is Ruby’s ride or die, so once she realizes that Luna has real feelings for Jackson, it’s game over. More than anything she wants Luna to be happy.”
When it looks like Ellis might be ousted, Ruby turns to Anna for some advice because she wasn’t the top of her class and is nervous about her job prospects. Anna reassures Ruby that her honesty and drive — and excellence — are what got her hired in the first place.
“She realizes that who she is and the way she works is not less than. It alleviates the imposter syndrome that she’s been trying to hide behind a confident exterior,” says Ferreira. “Ruby feels undeserving –– which I think a lot of people who are excelling in something they never saw themselves in can relate to. It can be very isolating. So receiving that type of validation from Anna and from Anna specifically –– a woman in a position of power –– is such a strengthening and energizing moment for Ruby and definitely empowers her next moves.”
Unstable is streaming on Netflix now.
