Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers for the series finale of All Her Fault
The final episode of Peacock’s thriller All Her Fault is jam-packed with a myriad of twists and turns about the kidnapping of young Milo Irvine (Duke McCloud) that the audience don’t see coming… hopefully. But there’s one scene that’s particularly key for Milo’s mom, Marissa (Sarah Snook) as she realizes that she has to do something about her husband, Peter (Jake Lacy).
Prior to the scene in question, Milo’s kidnapper Carrie (Sophie Lillis) has shown up at the Irvine home, and shoots Marissa’s best friend and business partner, Colin (Jay Ellis). Peter then wrestles with Carrie over the fun and, in the struggle, kills her. But we know that Peter has killed the former nanny because he doesn’t want Marissa finding out that Milo is really Carrie’s son. Years earlier, Peter orchestrated a baby swap after his and Marissa’s infant died in a car accident.
Later, once things seem to have calmed down, Sarah and Peter gently argue about whether it’s time for Milo to go back to school. Peter then tells his son not to use a pair of scissors, prompting Milo to get angry and run away. Peter chases after him and tells him “You are mine!” That outburst, in turn, prompts Marissa to flash back to Carrie’s death — after which Peter defiantly said, “He’s mine.”
According to Lacy, the close-up of Marissa watching that exchange between father and son is very telling. “Marissa has this awareness of the extent of Peter’s need to control or the intensity with which he can’t let things out of his grasp,” the actor observes. “It’s in his DNA.” (It also harkens back to information gleaned from the show’s fifth episode about Peter’s manipulation of his siblings.)
Lacy says that he approached the scene with Milo carefully, not wanting Peter to suddenly seem too villainous. “For me, that’s where a discussion with the director and the director of photography comes into play,” he explains. “I want to know stuff like, ‘What lens are you on? How are you shooting?’ Because if it’s wide enough or if it’s from Marissa’s point of view, then that performance can be within the parameters of her perspective. So that’s one level of aggression or intensity.”
Lacy was also careful about Peter’s characterization remaining consistent. “I don’t think Peter would ever be violent toward his son,” the actor says. “I also don’t want to all of a sudden have this aberration from the character that we’ve built and seen for a number of episodes.”
“Ultimately, they get to choose in the edit,” the actor acknowledges. “But I felt like the writers and directors and certainly Sarah was very conscious of saying, ‘You don’t want to talk down to your audience.’ You don’t need to lay it on thick for them to go, ‘Oh, that’s disconcerting.’”
Peter meets his end after an allergic reaction to soy — an affliction that’s casually brought up several times over course of the season. As he’s dying, the audience realizes that Marissa is the responsible party. But showrunner Megan Gallagher notes that she made sure the scene wouldn’t transform our heroine into a mustache-twirling villain. “I don’t think Sarah is capable of playing something corny,” she says. “She’s just too authentic and too talented of a woman to ever go into silly territory. We always knew that that ending was never going to be mustache twisty. It was always going to be authentic.”
“We so strongly set up in this series the truth, which is that we’ll do anything for our kids,” Gallagher adds. “It’s just honest and real so because that is what bolsters everybody’s actions throughout the series.”
