‘Tommy & Tuppence’ Stars React to That Finale Cliffhanger and Tease Season 2 Hopes

Editor's note: The following contains major spoilers for Tommy & Tuppence.

Summary

• In 'Tommy & Tuppence,' murder reunites exes as they revive Ada's detective agency and keep solving cases together.
• Their chemistry reignites as they spend more time working together, but Tuppence is avoidant when it comes to her feelings.
• A possible Season 2 teases bigger stakes, as the cast hopes to continue sleuthing.

The British crime drama Tommy & Tuppence, a contemporary adaptation of an Agatha Christie story that’s currently streaming on BritBox, follows mystery novelist Tommy Beresford (Josh Dylan) as he reunites and gets reacquainted with his ex from university, Tuppence Cowley (Antonia Thomas), a married actress who’s back in London to figure out her next steps. As the duo find themselves in the middle of a murder case that inspires them to take over Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives, previously established by Tommy’s Aunt Ada (Imelda Staunton), they realize that they’re actually pretty good at finding answers. But the more cases that come their way, the closer they get to each other and the riskier the danger becomes.

After screening the season, Collider got the opportunity to chat with co-stars Dylan and Thomas about the journey Tommy and Tuppence went on throughout the season and how their relationship evolved. During the interview, they discussed why Tuppence was the one to kiss Tommy first, whether she really knows what she wants or she’s just good at avoidance, Tommy’s relationship with DS Draper (Callie Cooke), whether Tuppence really is too late with her declaration of feelings for Tommy, and their hopes for a possible Season 2.

COLLIDER: I love your partnership in this show, and I just think you’re so much fun to watch together. I’m also a sucker for British crime dramas. Reconnecting after a murder is certainly an interesting way to bond with an ex and when it all starts with a murder at an extravagant Alice in Wonderland-themed wedding at a mansion, it’s great for visuals and costumes. What did you guys find most fun about the set-up for this series and how that gets your characters back into each other’s orbits?

JOSH DYLAN: It’s quite flamboyant, isn’t it? I particularly enjoyed the rabbit costume.

ANTONIA THOMAS: I was dressed as a flower. It’s quite the flamboyant, extravagant start. Tuppence, an out-of-work actress waitressing at this thing, is wearing a slightly silly costume and then bumping into an ex is tricky, but if there is going to be someone that you bump into at the scene of a murder that’s been traumatic, it’s quite nice for it to be someone that you have a familiarity with, regardless of how long ago it was that they last saw each other. It’s a pretty clever start to them immediately falling into it.

A Lot Has Happened in the 10 Years Since the ‘Tommy & Tuppence’ Exes Last Saw Each Other

"Here are two people who clearly have amazing chemistry and a knowledge of each other."

When you are ex-partners in romance but new partners in crime, there’s a built-in tension that just seems endlessly fun to play with and explore. How did you feel about that aspect of the relationship? What was it like to find that balance between their old relationship mixed with this new bond that they’re forming now?

DYLAN: It’s really interesting because the audience doesn’t necessarily know what happened. Here are two people who clearly have amazing chemistry and a knowledge of each other, but it’s been 10 years. A lot has happened, and they’ve changed and grown up. They’re reconnecting on a fundamental, instinctive level and picking things up where they left off. They’re like magnets, but equally the past and their current lives are floating there. As they get embroiled in these cases, it draws them further together and they’re bonding through it. Things come to the surface, so they’re working out, slowly but surely, what has changed and how. Eventually, they begin to feel like they need to discuss the past, and I don’t know how good they are at doing that, but it starts to bubble up because they’re reconnecting and their wires are crossing again. It feels very truthful to me.

It feels particularly interesting for Tuppence because she’s stuck in a situation where she’s also trying to figure out who she is right now and she doesn’t quite have that answer, even for herself.

THOMAS: Totally. She’s a mess, for sure. For Tuppence, even though it’s a sad and not very nice thing to have been embroiled in a murder of somebody, it becomes a happy distraction to be able to start figuring it out with Tommy. She’s a completely avoidant person. She’s just up and left her life in L.A., her husband, and her acting career because she just doesn’t really know what to do anymore, and she is really enjoying this. She’s pushing them into, “Come on, let’s figure out the case.” Apart from anything else, it’s just to have a good time and to feel good, and I think she feels good when she’s with him. They’re just having a laugh. It’s only really when things start to get serious because the cases get complicated, and then Julius, her husband, is constantly trying to get in touch, that it becomes a thing that can’t be avoided anymore. She’s a bit all over the place.

Do you feel like she was always going to be the one to make the first move to kiss Tommy? Was it always that way in the script? Did you guys have conversations about how that would play out?

THOMAS: I think it probably would have always been Tuppence because she’s the one who, on paper, does the disappointing, in regard to their past relationship. I think Tommy is an adult and knows she’s married, so it has to come from her. What do you think, Josh?

DYLAN: It was just so charged, wasn’t it? It’s a particularly raw morning, that one. They feel a bit shaken. They care for each other so deeply and they’ve been living together in his flat. The thing with these two characters, the beauty of them, is that they’re not especially good at talking about their feelings. They’re extremely sensitive and emotionally in tune. I think you can feel the current between them and they’re aware of that. But in terms of picking the right moment to talk about it and articulate that, they find it difficult because life is complicated and their lives are particularly complicated.

It gets even more complicated as they’re working together and involved in other people’s lives. It’s death and all sorts of mystery that’s going on, but they keep missing each other. So much of the show is one of them trying to broach a conversation while the other one doesn’t quite have the courage. That feels very human and very believable to me. We played with that. No one’s perfect. They’ve got so much potential and so much between them, but they just can’t quite align. That’s perhaps the reason the first time around, 10 years ago, that things didn’t quite work out.

Tommy & Tuppence’s Antonia Thomas Says Tuppence Has No Idea What She Wants From Tommy or Her Husband

"She just knows that it feels really great being with him."

Image via BritBox

Do you feel like Tuppence knows what she wants? Is she just afraid of what she wants? Does she just need therapy?

THOMAS: I think she has no idea what she wants. I think she knows on a deep level. She’s thought about Tommy more than she’d like to admit, over the years. That was a bad breakup, and she knows, deep down, that at the time she was maybe flippant about it, but it’s haunted her, and she thinks about him a lot and she’s read all his books. She maybe hoped for the opportunity to see him again, but she’s also completely avoidant so she buried that. She got on with her life and married somebody else because he was nice and that was fun, but it’s not really working. On meeting him again, I think she didn’t realize how much she wanted to see him again until she sees him again. And then, she just knows that it feels really great being with him.

She definitely doesn’t know how to deal with her marriage, so she’s just avoiding it until Julius literally turns up on the doorstep at the very wrong moment. She’s so not a person that knows what she wants or how to unpick stuff. It’s a really hard thing to admit, isn’t it? The reality of it, out of a rom-com world, is that she’s looking at divorce and that’s really horrible. It would be really nice and easy if she was a teenager, but she’s not. They’re adults, and she’s got a life. It isn’t working anymore, but it’s really hard to admit that. On meeting Tommy, he brings that right into focus, that it’s not really working anymore. She tries to avoid it for a little bit until it becomes a thing that she can’t. And Tommy wants to talk about it because he’s much more mature than she is when it comes to actions. She doesn’t really want to talk about it, and she tries not to talk about it. But no, I don’t think she knows what she wants.

There’s something so interesting about watching Tuppence’s relationship with Julius ending while Tommy’s got this relationship with DS Draper that’s just beginning. Josh, how do you feel about what that relationship could be versus what his relationship with Tuppence is?

DYLAN: It’s very different. The reality is that Tuppence is in her own lane in Tommy’s world. She is quite incomparable. He has a really interesting thing with Draper, and yes, he messages her, but it’s because Aunt Ada is encouraging him to get out there in change his focus. But I think he has a very deep connection with Tuppence and I don’t think he’s going to be able to forget that anytime soon. Life is complicated. He’s trying to find his way, but also do what’s right for everyone.

Antonia, what was it like for you to read that line when Tuppence shows up at Tommy’s and says, “Am I really too late?” She made a final decision after all that time, but did she wait too long? How did you feel about how that all plays out?

THOMAS: It’s brutal. She’s silly. She left it until too late. And that’s life, as well. Timing can be a real tricky thing. It’s a really well-written scene and it’s the reality of life. Sometimes it’s like, “You’ve messed me about too much and now I’ve moved on.” Who knows what, (creator) Phoebe [Eclair-Powell], if we get a second season, might write. I do think they have an undeniable connection if they continue to work together as detectives, which we know they will because that’s the premise of the show. It will be very hard to deny that chemistry, but who knows? Draper is also a lovely woman. And Tommy, by the end of the season, is fed up with Tuppence’s impulsiveness and getting them in trouble, and carelessness in regards to them and their feelings and what’s going on with them.

DYLAN: To him, she chooses Julius.

THOMAS: Yeah. Which is a rejection again. She’s married, to be very honest with you, and she has to at least give that a chance. It’s very, very complicated, which is great.

Josh Dylan and Antonia Thomas Hope ‘Tommy & Tuppence’ Will Continue for Season 2

"They're going to have to solve a case in Fiji."

Image via BritBox

I love the moment at the end when they’re offered a mission from Constance, but we don’t know what it is. Have you had conversations about whether we’d get to see that in a possible Season 2? Will we get to find out what that mission is?

DYLAN: They’re going to have to solve a case in Fiji. It’s going to be on a really beautiful beach and have something to do with establishing the nicest beer on the island, so we’ll have to drink quite a lot of beer.

THOMAS: And we’ll do a lot of swimming in the sea.

DYLAN: No one gets hurt and we just put our feet up.

THOMAS: It’s a lovely holiday. No. We actually don’t know, so we’re speculating, but it feels like that would be the thing where you’d start the next season. But who knows? Only Phoebe knows.

It’s fun because it feels like it would be more high-stakes.

DYLAN: Definitely.

Tommy & Tuppence is available to stream on BritBox.