Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Margo’s Got Money Trouble, “Lock and Load,” now streaming on Apple TV.
In the first episode of “Margo’s Got Money Trouble,” college student Margo (Elle Fanning) is led to believe that she is giving up her life and creative endeavors forever after deciding to become unexpectedly pregnant. But by the end of the season finale, she not only won Bodhi’s custody battle against her absentee father Mark (Michael Angarano), but also creatively rejuvenated through her work on OnlyFans.
“What’s really happening during the season is that Bodhi’s presence in her life is kind of fueling her creativity,” executive producer Eva Anderson, who was recently promoted to co-showrunner for season two, told Variety. “That’s what gives her the drive to live her life the best she can and be someone that her son can respect and be proud of and cherish. So the great work that she’s doing, at the end of the day, is for her kids and for herself. It goes against all the messages she’s been fed.”
Allison Riggs/Provided by Apple TV
Based on Luffy Thorpe’s best-selling 2024 novel of the same name and created for television by David E. Kelley (known for creating Ally McBeal and The Practice, as well as the theatrical success of Big Little Lies and Presumed Innocent), the eight-episode Apple TV series follows Margo’s chaotic and tumultuous artistic journey through motherhood.
Desperately needing money to support herself and keep a roof over her head, single mother Margo turns to OnlyFans. OnlyFans is a popular subscription-based platform where creators earn money by posting explicit videos. The dysfunctional family, including her critical mother Cheyenne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her father Jinx (Nick Offerman), a former professional wrestler who abandoned Margo when she was young, eventually come together to help raise Margo. Jinx even moves in with Margo and her last remaining college roommate, Susie (Thadea Graham), against Shanne’s wishes.
Margo begins her journey as a young mother feeling alone, but soon realizes the power of the village around her after Shan’ann and Jinx appear in court. Kelly said a big discovery during the writing process was realizing how important the family element of the show was. Even characters like Susie and Cheyenne’s husband Kenny (Greg Kinnear) become “de facto family members.”
“By the time the custody battle started in court, we really wanted to feel them individually and feel the unit. I don’t know if we really anticipated the depth of the unit at the beginning of the journey, but by the Las Vegas episode, we knew we had it,” Kelly says. “The magic in our bottle, at least for me, was the ferocity of Margo and the ferocity of the love that all of the characters had for each other. The way they performed and expressed their acts of devotion was questionable at times, but there was no doubt that the love and dedication was there.”
Provided by Apple TV
The custody battle becomes high stakes after Child Protective Services (CPS) is called by Margo due to Jinx’s drug relapse in episode 7. When the judge asks Margo’s entire family to hug Bodhi, everyone sees the bond they’ve formed with him, even Shan’ann! — reveals his true home. The judge grants full custody to Margo, allowing Mark to visit Bodhi twice a month on weekends.
“It’s like when Mark said in mediation that he didn’t trust the tribe that was raising the baby. What’s happening in court is that Margo challenges that herself and shows that even though it’s a nasty tribe of weirdos, they can take care of this baby, they love this baby, and the baby trusts and loves them,” says Anderson. “Mark doesn’t have that kind of community around him.”
Teach Margo the ropes Two OnlyFans creators, KC (Rico Nasty) and Rose (Lindsay Normington), help Margo understand the value of sex work as art. Tracking Margo’s growth as an artist from the first episode, Kelly says, “The pilot exposes her to a number of obstacles, any of which could knock her down or bring her down. It’s not necessarily that she has a plan to defeat the monster, but she certainly has a will. Over the course of eight episodes, we see that will coalesce with an actual plan and a creative throughline.”
Allison Riggs/Provided by Apple TV
The initial message that Margo is about to give up all her potential is interrupted by Shan’ann, who herself becomes a mother at a young age and works as a waitress at Hooters to make ends meet. The similarities between mothers and daughters allow the show to explore multigenerational cycles. “Shaanne was desperately afraid that Margo would make the same mistakes she did. But one of Shanne’s discoveries over those eight hours is that some of her mistakes may have become her best work,” Kelly says.
“Part of the fun of the show was the role reversal of who was raising who from episode to episode. One of the things they had in common was that they both had a desire, if not hopelessness, for the other’s approval, and that it never made them feel safe. Through their (respective) journeys, they came to the realization and realization that they were truly in each other’s corner, certainly supporting and approving each other, from being mother and daughter in one moment to being combatants in the next moment, and brothers and companions in the third moment. ”
Anderson says what makes Margo the best new mother comes from the different personalities of Jinx and Shanne. “Margo gets her superpowers from her father’s creativity and her mother’s drive to fight and never back down. They both love Margo so deeply that she is able to put them together to create something truly special.”
Allison Riggs/Provided by Apple TV
The show’s exploration of sex work is not only in how the outside world judges Margo, but also in her family’s own reaction to Margo making money from OnlyFans. Shan’ann, who found out about this on the night before the wedding in episode 5, had an even more unusual reaction, leading to a stifling wedding day. Jinx comes to understand Margo’s decision early on, but has reservations.
Other popular shows like “Euphoria” Season 3, which featured Sidney Sweeney’s character on OnlyFans, and Sean Baker’s Oscar-winning film “Anora,” starring Mikey Madison as a sex worker, have also sparked complex debates about how the profession is portrayed in the media. Anderson said the purpose of exploring Margo’s decision to use OnlyFans, which would be used as a weapon against her in the finale after Mark calls her a “pervert,” was to approach it in a “non-judgmental way” because Margo approaches everything in life through that lens.
“If you were in Margo’s shoes and walked onto OnlyFans, this is what you might experience,” Anderson says. “This is not a story about someone who is in the top 10 OnlyFans models in the country or the world, but someone who is just trying to make it.” (The producer also created a real OnlyFans account for research purposes.)
Kelly and Anderson, who wrote the finale together, said they stayed fairly faithful to the original story, but made some notable changes to build on how the family comes together in the end. For example, Shan’ann doesn’t exist all that much in the novel.
“She leaves so quickly in the book, but we felt like we had to keep Shanne around because this character felt so rich to all of us, and the relationship between Margo and Shanne was so important to this book and to the character of Margo,” Kelly says. “It felt very organic.”
Kelly and Anderson are remaining tight-lipped about the details of Season 2, but Anderson quipped that with the new identity, “We’re going to move the whole gang to Mexico.” — The season 1 finale leaves a lot to explore after Margo begins the next step with her OnlyFans efforts and Kenny calls Margo to CPS as a protective measure.
“One of the really great things about this book is that Luffy Thorpe originally envisioned it as a series, so she has this idea in her head of these stories continuing. So when you read Margo on the page, you can imagine these characters continuing over the years and throughout their lives,” Anderson says. “We’re working on some of Luffy’s ideas for the second season, and we’re really excited to see where it goes.”
