Liz Meriwether breaks down the limited series' finale.
Warning: This article contains spoilers about the series finale ofThe Dropout.
The Dropouthas finally graduated.
In the wake of the Wall Street Journal article, Elizabeth and Sunny face a reckoning. Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried), shown.Beth Dubber/Hulu
Balwani was indicted on two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud.
His trial began last month.
What was that process like?
LIZ MERIWETHER:Yeah, it was really hard for me to write the finale.
I was putting it off for a long time.
But I also knew that we needed a big operatic fight between them.
It felt like something had to kind of break.
What is it that they don’t know about each other yet?
And I landed on him getting to some realization that she had never really loved him.
Those were definitely very hard scenes to write for me.
Is that moment supposed to serve as a proxy for the audience’s feelings about Elizabeth?
As I was writing it, I was like, “Oh, this is me.
I’m talking to her.”
And then COVID happened.
And at that point we spent all of our money and everything.
And then Elizabeth, just getting in an Uber.
And as she was leaving the stage, somebody yelled out, “You hurt people.”
And, in the writers room, we always said that needs to be in the show.
So that became that Linda scene.
We finally get briefly introduced to Balto, the infamous dog that Holmes reportedly told people was a wolf.
Did you play around with having more of Balto, and getting into the wolf thing?
So that was something that we had talked about.
So, we definitely wanted it in the show.
Walk me through those final days of shooting.
What was that like for everyone?
So, it was like a mixture of those two things.
I did go to set.
We did shoot things out of order, but we did block shooting.
So we ended up, I think, shooting that stuff on the last day anyway.
And I actually physically went to set for that, which was great.
I was so happy to be there.
But up to the very last moment, [she was] just giving everything she had.
Are you ready to be done with Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos saga?
I am completely done.
And I’m very happy to do that.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
