Sharon Horgan Unpacks That Devastating ‘Bad Sisters’ Season 2 Finale

(Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Bad Sisters Season 2 finale.)

Despite near drownings, blunt force trauma, and contemplating disposing of a body, none of the Garveys actually kills anyone in the second season of Bad Sisters—a surprise considering that Season 1 of the series centered around a shocking, though gratifying, murder. So while death still loomed large in the Apple TV+ series, Season 2 showcased how the Garvey sisters are very bad at committing and covering up crimes no matter how many madcap schemes they take part in.

In Season 2, the finale of which, “Cliff Hanger,” premiered Dec. 23, all roads lead back to the abusive John Paul Williams (Claes Bang), who rightly earned the nickname The Prick and was killed by his wife Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) in Season 1. However, co-creator Sharon Horgan found new villains for us to hurl expletives at across eight more episodes.

“I think everyone liked having someone to be really angry at. There was a catharsis of that in the first season,” Horgan tells the Daily Beast’s Obsessed. “So with the second season, it’s delivered in a different way. I hope by the end, there’s a similar kind of feeling.” Horgan laughs when I mention that I actively yelled at the screen more than a few times while watching Eva (Horgan) and her siblings' attempts to avoid jail and get justice for Grace, who died in a car accident earlier this season.

Bad Sisters could easily have remained a limited series. Thankfully, the notion of consequences and the larger picture of a post-Prick world pulled Horgan back to this story: “There were other themes I wanted to explore and other bigger enemies like the cops and that institutional [pattern of] not treating female victims in the way they should be treated. The old boys’ network and all that stuff felt like fair game.”

While watching Season 2, most of my ire was aimed at Grace’s second husband, Ian Reilly (Owen McDonnell)—even before I knew the extent of his violent past. My opinion soured the moment Ian first made eyes at Eva without showing a modicum of grief for the woman he just buried. By the time it became apparent that Ian’s nice guy routine was part of the long con, I was more than ready for Angelica Collins (Fiona Shaw) to hit him with Blánaid’s (Saise Quinn) hurling stick, as she does in the finale.

It is equally satisfying that Ian ends the season injured but alive, without any of his schemes coming to pass. Sure, it would be better to see Ian behind bars, but we can’t have everything—otherwise, Grace would still be alive.

Horgan ensures there are multiple targets to direct your fury at in the wake of Grace’s shocking death: Ian Reilly, the police, and busybody Angelica. Not all villains are created equal. By the finale, it is clear the main offenders are violent ex-cop Ian (whose real name is Cormac Sweeney) and the system that protects a police officer. In the last two episodes, Detective Houlihan (Thaddea Graham) discovers a trove of accusations against Sweeney, including domestic violence, fraud, and sexual harassment. The individual man and the institution are complicit, even if neither directly drove Grace off the road. “Nasty piece of s---” was Houlihan’s accurate description of Ian in the penultimate episode.

Grace’s agitated, teary state was a result of her showdown with her new husband about the fate of her dead former one, The Prick. “You were just a mark,” Ian cooly responded when Grace asked if he ever loved her. “Women who have been through what Grace went through—especially someone as gentle and vulnerable as her—how would you ever get over the guilt? How would her conscience recover?” asks Horgan.

The opening scenes of “Cliff Hanger” turn the clock back to the night Grace confessed to Ian that she killed JP. Horgan describes Grace as “carrying that shame and secret” of JP, and her discovery about Ian compounds this further.

We as viewers were as much in the dark as Grace’s sisters about Ian’s intentions until the final few episodes, when his nefarious scheme to take every last penny of Grace’s estate is revealed. “Before Grace had somebody [JP] who made her isolated; now she isolates herself by not telling the girls about Roger, by hiding things about Ian,” says Duff. “Grace isolates herself from the audience because the audience doesn’t find anything out until much later.”

One person Grace partially confessed to earlier this season was Angelica, who put some of the pieces together and got the rest of the information from Roger. “Ultimately, with Angelica, it gets her thinking that she’s going to take care of the secret, but Grace has to let her in,” says Horgan.

While Angelica might have been a “wagon” (Horgan helpfully defined this insult for us), she is innocent of harming Grace. Instead, she is guilty of caring about Grace too much. “She has a lot of love for Grace but doesn’t understand why she’s been ostracized,” says Horgan. In the finale, Angelica almost kills Ian because of how he is talking about his deceased wife. (Shaw’s sincere delivery of “Is he winded?” when blood is pouring out of Ian’s head is Emmy-worthy by itself)

Sure, Angelica was manipulative and overbearing in the aftermath of Grace’s death. (Not to mention suggesting that Eva wasn’t actually raped by JP, which… yikes!) However, after Angelica is knocked unconscious and flung into the sea by an errant boom, she comes out of the water with a fresh and more forgiving perspective from her near-death experience. Well, more forgiving of the Garveys, not Ian.

Perhaps the most significant moment in the opening flashback is Grace discovering Ian’s bigamy before her death, after calling a number on the phone Becka (Eve Hewson) found hidden in the bathroom. A short conversation revealed Ian is Cormac, and he has another wife. Only after Grace meets with Ian to tell him she won’t be handing over the €20,000 he demanded in exchange for his silence about JP’s death does she tearily reach out to Eva while driving home. Unfortunately, the phone call went to Eva’s voicemail.

“The fact that she doesn’t turn to her family for help because she is so ashamed that she, in a sense, [has] done it again—through no fault of her own,” says Horgan. “She can’t get help. All of it is just a fallout from the Prick. All of it is the aftermath of what happened.”

Within a few moments of leaving Eva a vague, teary message asking for assistance, Grace will be dead. Having all this information now after the finale puts the car crash into context for viewers, making it even more heartbreaking to watch again in the flashback. For Duff, shooting the crash sequence in the middle of the night came with pressures, including that it was her last time playing Grace.

“It was extraordinary because I was having to juggle all these things: the feeling as an actor of leaving a show, to not let the stunt crew down, everybody’s there, and there’s only so much time,” Duff recalls. “At the same time, [director] Dearbhla [Walsh] said to me, ‘Don’t forget your character’s journey, your story, how anxious she is.” The high stakes and emotions of the night meant that when Duff finally got back to her hotel room, she sat on the bed in a daze for half an hour. “It’s always weird saying goodbye to characters, but that was such a weird ending that I never experienced before.”

Are we all saying a permanent farewell to the Garveys? At the time of writing, it has not been confirmed either way, but there is a finality to the closing moments when the family gathers to honor Grace without the stress of cops picking their lives apart. Catharsis comes in shared tears (including mine) at this beautiful and emotional goodbye celebrating Grace. If Horgan and this cast return at any point, I will be with them, yelling at the villain of the hour and cheering on these sisters through the chaos.