‘Bad Sisters’ Creator Sharon Horgan Breaks Down the Finale, JP’s Death, and Alternate Endings

Warning: Spoilers for Bad Sisters’ finale ahead.

Ding dong! The prick is dead.

The Season 1 finale of Bad Sisters, Apple TV+‘s dark comedic thriller from star Sharon Horgan, finally revealed how the Garvey sisters finished off the despicable John Paul (Claes Bang). Though Eva (Horgan), Bibi (Sarah Greene), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), and Becka (Eve Hewson) spent nine episodes tying to murder their brother-in-law, in the end, their sister Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) took her husband down.

“I’m really satisfied, really satisfied, with the way it turned out,” creator and star Sharon Horgan said, reflecting on the finale in a phone interview with Decider. Horgan’s 10-episode who/howdunit is an adaptation of Malin-Sarah Gozin’s Flemish series, Clan, and though she made major changes when crafting Bad Sisters — from setting the show in Ireland and introducing religion to cutting slapstick comedy and minimizing the murder attempts — both finales show the prick’s wife doing away with him.

Episode 10, “Saving Grace,” opens with a flashback and news that JP died by strangulation after his scarf got caught in his quad bike’s wheel. In present-day, the four sisters sort their alibis and wonder if Ursula’s man Ben (Peter Coonan) was involved somehow. (Spoiler alert: He wasn’t.) With Thomas (Brian Gleeson) at the hospital waiting for his wife to give birth, Matt (Daryl McCormack) runs the investigation solo, interviewing Roger (Michael Smiley) and heading to Grace’s cabin. Grace does some digging of her own and uncovers JP’s dirty secrets, including the fact that he ruined Roger’s reputation.

After Grace learns her sisters tried to kill JP, she breaks down crying and tells them the truth. She and JP got in a horrible fight the night of his death. She learned he raped Eva a decade earlier, and after he punched Grace in the stomach, she strangled him with his pajama bottoms. That night, Grace watched the 1968 film Isadora, which shows dancer Isadora Duncan’s accidental death by scarf strangulation, so she called Roger to help her recreate the scene.

In present-day, Matt finds Isadora teed up to the death scene in the cabin. He cracks the case, and Becka considers drugging him to keep him quiet, but ultimately backs out. After Matt learns what a vile human JP was, he lets the sisters off the hook. In return, Grace withdraws the insurance claim and moves in with Eva. In the final moments, all five sisters meet at the Forty Foot to celebrate family and freedom.

Read on to hear Sharon Horgan unpack the riveting finale, gush over Bad Sisters superfan Stanley Tucci, and discuss a possible Season 2.

Decider: These sisters have such palpable chemistry throughout the series, and one of my favorite scenes in the finale is after JP dies, Becka, Bibi, and Eva just collapse into laughter. What was shooting that scene like, and how much improv, if any, was in this series?

Sharon Horgan: There wasn’t really [any improv]. I’ve always written quite tightly, and — oh no, I tell a lie! There’s a moment in Episode 8, where we’re trying to figure out who’s gonna go back and find the nasal spray with the Rohypnol in it. We’re looking around the kitchen and it was Sarah Greene who said, “I have one eye,” as her reason. So that was brilliant. [Laughs] And the laughter scene is so funny, because Apple were a bit worried. They were like, “They are just gonna look like callous bitches. Their sister is destroyed.” And obviously the scene right before it, she’s completely debilitated with grief. But you can’t forget they spent nine episodes trying to kill this fucker. So I was like, “Don’t worry about it. It will be fine.” And it was fine. It was weirdly really hard to do. Because it’s tricky to just laugh on command, and for it to feel infectious and real. You have to do it 25 times from all different angles. And then we have to get very sad very quickly.

Well, it was perfect. I’m very glad you kept it.

Aw thank you. It’s absolutely one of my favorite moments, and I love how it’s shot as well.

Speaking of sisters, I have to ask about something fans have been saying online for years, which is that you and the talented Connie Britton look like long lost sisters.

Well you know it’s so funny, I’m finally meeting her! I’m finally meeting her when I go to LA.

Oh my gosh, are you making those casting dreams come true?

Well no, not the sisters thing, but I love her and she’s a wonderful performer. My agent just got in touch and said, “Let’s hook you and Connie Britton up.” So I hope it happens.

On a serious finale note, JP is such a detestable man that it’s cathartic watching him finally get retribution. But seeing Grace be the one to take him down after learning he sexually assaulted Eva is extra satisfying. What were your thoughts when you learned about those twists?

Well they were absolutely in the amazing Flemish original. I remember when I was watching it, they completely floored me. Not even necessarily from a sort of twist point of view, but because it all circled back to love. The sisters are trying to kill this man for the love of their sister Grace. They’re trying to kill him before he either kills her or takes away her will to live, her spark, her confidence, all of it. And when Grace finds out he’s essentially destroyed Eva’s life, that’s what causes her to crack. And that’s love, you know? How she feels about her sisters trumps how she feels about herself. She was almost incapable of standing up for herself. But somehow she finds this strength when she hears what he did to Eva. It’s such a powerful moment. This wasn’t improvised, but when we were rehearsing, Anne-Marie Duff, who plays Grace, said, “Can I say at the end, ‘You made me think it was me?'” Because the reason her rage overtakes her is her love for her sister, but in order to bring it back to her, the veils have finally fallen from her eyes and she sees that it was him all along in everything. When he made her seem like less of a mother, less of a woman, less of a human being — he made her think that that was all her. So I said, “Yes, we absolutely will.”

I understand why there wouldn’t be a Season 2, because that main story is nicely wrapped up, but I would watch the hell out of this family forever. Is there’s any chance the show continues?

Well, it’s a really tricky thing. Because like you said, that’s the story. It began as a limited series, and that’s how I approached it. But everyone keeps telling me how much they love it, including our overlords. So I don’t know. I guess if a really great idea came along. At the same time I’m really satisfied, really satisfied, with the way it turned out.

In case we don’t get a Season 2, we need to talk about Becka and Matt. First, I can’t believe this show cast two people with unfairly stunning eyes as love interests. Second, do you think this is the end for them, or is there hope in the future?

Oh my god, I know. Absolutely ridiculous specimens! You know what, you’re gonna kill me when I say this…

Oh no. [Laughs]

Well I don’t know if you will or not, but I had written codas for each of the sisters. And one of the codas was obviously Matt and Becka went their separate ways, but she is walking along that sort of strand, and he’s there playing ball with those old guys, and they just see each other and then we kind of leave it. They see each other, and you know there’s still something there. But there isn’t time to go through each of those sisters. In a way, it’s satisfying with them all together. And it has to end with Grace and Grace’s story. I think finales are really hard. But mainly, I get frustrated with finales when I feel like they’ve got too many endings. But if we ever did anything further it’d be very hard not to want to see those two together.

Speaking of that glorious final shot, did you always know that was how you wanted to end the season?

Yeah, it’s weird. It’s so weird, endings come really naturally to me. When Rob [Delaney] and I came up with the ending for Catastrophe — which was also weirdly in the water, I hadn’t even thought about that — we thought of that ending before we thought of anything we wanted to write in the season. But with the sisters, once I figured out it was going to be at the Forty Foot — their place, their history, their tradition, and their parents’ tradition before them — once I realized I wanted to get them back there I knew I wanted them in the water and Grace swimming towards them. I get goosebumps, because in my head, I always saw Eva beckoning to her, saying, “What are you waiting for?” So it was great to be able to get to finish it in that way. Sometimes productions work against you. You don’t have the weather, or they don’t always work that way they were written on the page, but this one did.

Bad Sisters has been so well received, and you even got an Instagram shoutout from Stanley Tucci recently. What was that like for you?

It was amazing. I was SO happy because I’m a huge fan of his. And he knows it as well. But it was just so cute — just that he and his wife were so into it, and that he was flattered. It was just a real nice, normal human moment.

I love that they didn’t even turn the lights on.

[Laughs] I know! That scene, we actually had to drop a version of it because we’d run out of light and time on location. So I had to rewrite the scene and put it in Eva’s kitchen. And I decided that Becka was stealing the limes and tequila, so the Tucci reference was one of those write a scene quickly things. I called up my producer [after Tucci’s video] and was like, “Thank god I did that.”

How does it feel to have successfully brought a new version of the show to life? Are there any future projects you’re excited about?

It feels absolutely wonderful. I spent two and a half years, maybe more, making this show. If no one had liked it — or worse, if no one watched it — I don’t know how I’d be feeling right now. So it’s just the most ridiculously satisfying feeling that people not only watched it, but really got on board. I have a load of things I’m working on through my production company, Merman. Shining Vale is filming as we speak. And I’m writing a film, and gearing up to direct a film.

Amazing. A film for Stanley Tucci!

Oh, that would be wonderful. I mean, I’ve already sort of tried to offer him something. [Laughs] The great thing about this job is you get to watch and admire people from afar, and sometimes it works out where you get to work together. At some point I would love to work with him. That would be lovely.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.