SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils the entirety of My Life With the Walter Boys Season 2, specifically the finale.
Season 2 of My Life With the Walter Boys ends with not one, but two cliffhangers.
Following Jackie’s hard work saving the Fall Formal and arranging for college reps to speak with students at Silver Fall’s High — which earns her a Silver Falls Sparkle Award, the first for a younger person of the community — Jackie finally admits her feelings for Cole (Noah LaLonde) to the older Walter brother, only Alex (Ashby Gentry), who she got back together with mid-season, overhears.
“In Season 2 we show a lot more of the world, of the community, of a small town. Lots of things that happen in a small town, events that you attend,” showrunner Melanie Halsall told Deadline. “We wanted [Jackie] to be really in the center of those things, because that’s what she’s trying to do in this season. Of course, then the dilemma she has is upending that again as her journey ends in the season. That’s her dilemma because she’s worked so hard to be part of that world.”
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Following the Sparkle and Cole’s leading the Silver Falls High Bighorns football team to victory against Aurelita, Jackie learns that Cole has kept his stellar new SAT score of 1250 from her for a couple weeks even though she had previously asked him if it came back. She confronts him about it outside the Walter house. This is when he tells her he walked in on her and Alex making out in her Uncle Richard’s (Alex Quinjano) house and asks her why she can stay away from him, but not from his brother. After Cole tells Jackie he loves her, she says it back to him.
“I think it’s easy because it’s how she feels, and it’s in the moment. I think it’s difficult because there are so many layered, complicated feelings surrounding that, surrounding both of them, and she doesn’t want to hurt anybody, obviously,” Rodriguez told Deadline of the double-sided declaration. “It’s a very, very layered moment, and I don’t think it’s a plan. It just kind of just happens.”
Unfortunately, viewers don’t get to see how Cole responds to Jackie’s “I love you” because right after Alex speaks behind them, Will (Johnny Link) pulls up to the house with an ambulance in his wake because he has found George (Marc Blucas) on the upper fields late into the night. Earlier on in the show when George and Katherine (Sarah Rafferty) went on a date, the Walters’ father seemed to suggest he had some chest pain on the left side over his heart after too much apple pie à la mode, but everything had gone on as normal.
Marc Blucas as George Walter ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’ Season 2
Netflix
“Of course you always want to end a season with something huge, and I felt that we had earned that confession and declaration of love from both Cole and Jackie. It’s something they have both been trying to avoid saying all season but by Episode 10, we have reached a place where they just can’t do that anymore,” Halsall said. “Plus, this season has been about Jackie struggling with her identity and wanting to cement herself in Silver Falls and in the family. So with George’s collapse, I wanted to blow a hole in the entire family set-up at the end – not just in the love triangle.”
LaLonde, speaking to Deadline in a separate interview ahead of the show’s launch, shared what he felt was going through Cole’s head upon hearing those words from Jackie.
“Like a lot of other moments in the season, it is this combination of frustration and confusion. If you’re reading it on paper, getting told that this person that you love loves you back, that would be great, on paper, but when you put it in the context of how it comes out and how it happens, it is not unlike every other interaction in the season where it is incredibly frustrating and incredibly confusing,” he said. “It left me second-guessing myself, frustrated, confused and wanting to know what happened next. I think Cole feels the same way because he’s on this journey with his brothers, but this one thing that I think ultimately is the North Star, which is Jackie — I don’t even know if he knows that exactly in those terms, but it is her. He just can’t figure that part out, or he just can’t get it to work. There’s always something missing.”
Gentry, also in a separate interview with Deadline, mentioned that there was a longer version of the scene after Alex says “You love him?” behind Jackie and Cole with “an initial reaction to that news that was taken out and left for a later date.”
“I think what was going through [Alex’s] head was, “What the f*ck?” I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that. I don’t know how you slice it any other way. That’s probably what I would be thinking,” he said. “They clearly have a bigger problem. There’s an ambulance pulling up to their house. I feel like audiences will agree that it feels like there’s a reckoning that needs to take place between these three. If they never talked about it, that’d be crazy.”
L-R Noah LaLonde as Cole and Sarah Rafferty as Katherine in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’ Season 2
David Brown/Netflix
Both actors hinted that they have an idea about what comes next for Season 3.
“Luckily, I get to work internally on the show, but if I was an audience member, man I would be really wondering what happens next,” LaLonde said. “I’m just glad I get to know. I’m mostly excited for the continued growth of these characters. I hope that that growth continues, and I hope that they can continue to look at their lives in a way that they grow from the things that happen to them, and not just let them happen without consequence.”
As for which cliffhanger gets addressed first, Gentry said audiences will have to wait and see.
“I think it spells out an issue of priority. It’s like, which thing are we going to deal with first? I could probably weigh in on what the more important thing is at the time, but who knows?” he said. “All I can really say about Season 3 as of right now is that I really like it. I really like what they’re doing.”
L to R: Natalie Sharp and Ashby Gentry as Alex in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’ Season 2
Courtesy of Netflix
Halsall and the cast are in early production on Season 3, which received its renewal before Season 2 even had its premiere date set.
“We’re at the beginning of filming and there is a huge amount of story still to come,” Halsall told Deadline. “I can’t say what those things will be, but I can say that we will be delving even deeper into the lives and loves of our characters in new and unexpected ways.”
Katie Campione contributed to this piece.
