Big Little Lies: One of the Monterey Five Was Supposed To Die

CONTAINS BIG LITTLE LIES SEASON 2 FINALE SPOILERS!

Poorna Jagannathan is a veteran actor of stage and screen with a long CV that included a central role on HBO’s The Night Of. But when she got the call to appear in Big Little Lies, the actor was immediately overwhelmed by both absolute joy and enormous stress. As Katie Richmond, the lawyer originally hired to represent Celeste (Nicole Kidman), Jagannathan had a front-row seat to the prestige drama TV showdown of the century: Kidman vs. Meryl Streep.

“I would have taken this role no matter what,” Jagannathan said in an interview for the latest episode of Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast. But the chance to work with the most “elite cast in the world” was frosting on the cake. You can listen to Jagannathan’s full interview—including her revelation that in her version of the script, one of the main characters didn’t make it through to the end of the season—here.

When asked about the possibility of a third season of Big Little Lies—which Kidman has said is a very real one—Jagannathan expressed surprise at the season two finale’s cliff-hanger ending, which saw the Monterey Five all walking into the town’s police station together in solidarity. “I read the script and I watched yesterday’s episode and I was like, ‘Oh my god there might be a season three!’” she said. “It’s not the script I got! One character doesn’t even make it. One character dies. It’s a different script. This version left the door open on something I thought was definitely closed.”

Jagannathan was disinclined to reveal which character in her version of the script had died, and HBO declined to comment when asked. But it’s not a stretch to imagine that in that earlier iteration, the depressed and guilt-ridden Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz)—whom we see drowning in her mother’s vision at the end of episode four—is the one who didn’t make it.

(Vanity Fair)