Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for the Dec. 24 episode of “Palm Royal,” “Maxine Plays Dead,” now streaming on Apple TV.
Palm Royale’s Maxine and Douglas may be divorced, but their undeniable connection goes beyond the point of no return when she turns up as a surprise guest at his funeral this week, and his devastation sends him into a frenzy.
When a body was found in the pool at the Palm Royale, everyone thought it was Maxine (Kristen Wiig). Because it looked like her. But socialite friends Dinah (Leslie Bibb) and Evelyn (Allison Janney), along with Palm Beach’s resident reporter Anne (Mindy Cohn), quickly discover at the morgue that the deceased is not Maxine.
Meanwhile, Perry (Jordan Bridges) delivers “Maxine’s” ashes to a devastated Douglas (Josh Lucas) as the townspeople gather for the funeral, but he has no idea that a living Maxine is hiding inside the coffin. The eccentric medium Mary conveys a message from the real dead woman, Maxine’s twin Mirabel, and when she opens the coffin lid, Maxine is there. Chaos breaks out, mourners gasp, and Mitzi (Kaia Gerber) runs screaming. An inconsolable Douglas then eulogizes his ex-girlfriend, telling the “dead” Maxine how much he loved her.
Later that night, Maxine and Douglas get in touch, and she asks him if he meant what he said in church: that he loved her…but his answer wasn’t what she expected.
“He’s untethered, lost, and scared,” Josh Lucas told Variety. “He’s in so much pain. He’s just devastated… and you think, is it because he loves her so much or is it because he’s a total narcissist?”
Douglas (Josh Lucas) and Mitzi (Kaia Geber) attend Maxine’s funeral in “Palm Royale.”
Erica Parise
Maxine and Douglas’ love life changed after they moved to Palm Royale. “When you’re in a relationship this long, even if these two people are stupid enough to ignore it, their souls explode,” he says. “So I don’t think Douglas is thinking about putting the pieces back together. I think he’s really let loose now. … His world used to be his, but it’s not anymore.”
It started with his infidelity, and “every time it goes on, it just gets worse and worse,” Lucas added. “I don’t think he’s a guy who’s going to pick himself back up again when he loses Maxine, has a heart attack, and ultimately loses her (for good). He doesn’t go to therapy.”
Lucas believes that until he met Maxine, women were really just a “transaction” to him, and that marrying Linda/Penelope (Laura Dern) was just “the next right thing to do for his life, career, and money.”
“I think he really fell in love when he met Maxine. My sense is that he actually had integrity and took great pride in that, especially since he was flying around the world, in that he was loyal and loyal. And sure, he was flirting with stewardesses, but he didn’t do anything.”
There’s something childlike about Douglas, and as Lucas would say, doglike.
“He was a Labrador puppy who just enjoyed destroying houses, and then he realized, ‘Oh my god, I destroyed the house!'” he says with a laugh. “Look, he comes from incredible privilege. One of the things that I think is so great about this show is all the candy-coated confections. But at the heart of it, there’s always something like a bitter pill in reality.”
That dichotomy was part of the character design from the beginning. “Abe Sylvia and the producers never want to say they’re making fun of these people, because they’re not. Especially back in this time, these people still exist,” he says of the 1970s setting. “But there’s obviously a line to these people, especially white men who have incredible wealth and privilege and just don’t understand the world at all. They’re right in their own bubble, and Douglas has been in it all his life.”
In some ways, Maxine and Douglas’s marriage unfolds in a very realistic 1970s scenario. Back then, men had family and career roles, and women had feminine roles. Before Palm Royale, Maxine was a traditional wife and Douglas was fine with that.
“She talks about it. She’s a trad wife and takes great pride in that,” he says. “There’s honor in there. I think that’s a very interesting thing that’s happening today, whether it’s worthy or worthless. The show finds all these great things in there through the dialogue, like Roe v. Wade, women’s rights, the civil rights movement. But Douglas and Maxine don’t have any of that.”
During a recent Q&A, Sylvia reminded the audience that during this time, in certain parts of the country, women could not have a checking account without their husband’s signature.
“Those are things Douglas would think are good, and Maxine, her eyes are definitely opened throughout the show by all the women who are showing her these layers of possibility about how society can change,” Lucas points out. “But I also think she takes great pride in being a wife who really loves and takes care of her husband. … I think we really avoid hammering out any kind of overt political or psycho-sociological message and allow the show to exist purely as a candy.”
‘Palm Royale’ Season 2 is now available exclusively on Apple TV+, with new episodes released every Wednesday.
