The Royals creator teases season 3 finale: 'Liam's lost a lot'

If season 3 of The Royals has felt like a lighter, more fun, and twisted love-triangle go-round than last season’s murder mystery, that feeling was intentional. And it’ll also be just as prevalent in Sunday’s finale.

“I remember saying in the writers’ room in the first week, ‘When can The Royals be The Royals again?'” creator Mark Schwahn tells EW. “Of course we do like our dramatic moments and we do like heartbreak and mystery, but we also want to be that sort of cheeky, aspirational, wish-fulfillment playground once in a while, too.”

From there, he pitched the network a “relationship-driven season” and came up with the ideas for Kathryn with the princes and Spencer with Elizabeth Hurley’s Queen Helena. But there was one couple that needed to stay solid… at least for the time being.

“I wanted Jasper and Eleanor to be happy for a while,” he admits. “I think fans roll their eyes at that a little bit considering where they’re at right now in terms of story.”

As for our two warring princes, Schwahn says, “What I was compelled by is when you have a leader and a follower, it’s fine and there’s harmony. Liam was probably that follower when Robert left, but in his absence, Liam had grown into a leader of sorts. So now you’ve got two leaders, and who’s going to blink? … And then Kathryn became part and parcel to that story because now you’ve also got affairs of the heart at the center of it, too.”

Schwahn continues, “Liam lost a lot of things [this season], whether they were taken from him, whether he took them for granted and lost them. He found his relationships changing: Eleanor was closer to Robert before Robert was gone and then Liam got this relationship with his sister that he maybe never had, and then Robert comes back. Helena’s close with Robert; Cyrus loves Robert; Kathryn had been with Robert and felt like [going back to him] was the right thing to do.”

We’ll find out if Liam gains any of those things back (we’re still #KingLiam, buddy!) in the season 3 finale, which arrives Sunday at 10 p.m. on E!. But don’t get too sad about reaching the end: The Royals will begin filming season 4 this summer.