The final scene of Sex/Life Season 2 might feel familiar. Or, at least, it should. A nearly identical one occurs in the cold open of the season premiere.
But, let’s start with the ending: Episode 6 culminates with a beaming Billie (Sarah Shahi), walking down the aisle for the second time. But, she’s not in a church or a millennial-friendly vineyard. Billie is barefoot at the beach, walking toward on-again, off-again love interest Brad (Adam Demos), who is finally ready to be her permanently-on partner. “I’m pregnant,” she whispers to him, bringing a broad smile to his face.
And that’s when the déjà vu descends, because all this happened before, in Season 2, Episode 1. In a trio of opening shots in the premiere, Billie walks along the sand, wears a wedding dress and enjoys a sunny morning with Brad — and their three kids. Although this seemed like a fantasy sequence, it was actually a promise to be kept. Because, as Sex/Life creator Stacy Rukeyser tells Tudum, Season 2 was always meant to give its characters their happiest ending.
“At the end of the day, Sex/Life is a fairy tale,” Rukeyser says. “There are a lot of people who might have expected to see Billie pay a price for her desire and be punished for what she did at the end of Season 1. It was really important to me to say that this is not this show.”
However, that doesn’t mean the writers wanted to let Billie off the hook entirely for her transgressions. She did, after all, kick off Season 2 by attempting to secretly cheat on her husband with her ex-boyfriend. But, Brad rebuffs Billie and she’s forced to reckon with the reality of her broken marriage with Cooper (Mike Vogel). Yet, Billie isn’t thrown into a tailspin after this heartbreak — instead, she’s forced to grow into her truest self. Billie gets her own place, dates a sexy (if emotionally stunted) restaurateur (Darius Homayoun) and finishes her Ph.D. using her maiden name.
For Rukeyser, this powerful evolution is a small, but necessary, rejection of all the fallen women tropes littering our screen. “A woman who has sexual desire either becomes crazy, the bad girl or is really punished,” Rukeyser says. But not Billie and her best friend Sasha (Margaret Odette), who also pursues her deepest desires with abandon. Instead, the pair close Season 2 living their most fulfilling lives with husbands who adore them and thriving careers.
That said, aspects of the finale even came as a surprise to Rukeyser. “When I first started this show, I’d always thought that the happy ending would be that Billie ends up back with Cooper,” she explains. But, as relationships and chemistry grew over two seasons, Rukeyser realized that Billie “needed to end up with Brad.” Their Season 2 wedding confirms Billie wasn’t “crazy” to pursue her former flame so long after their breakup.
“This relationship makes sense on a very deep level,” she explains. “It’s that fantasy of the one who got away. [The guy] who you find down the line and he’s magically still in love with you, still thinking of you and still desperately wants to be with you. Plus, he worked out all of his issues.”
The season-ending pregnancy then offers them an even deeper full circle moment. Suddenly, Billie and Brad have another shot at parenthood following Billie’s miscarriage, which was revealed through Season 1 flashbacks.
“It was really devastating for them to lose the baby,” Rukeyser says. The miscarriage directly led to Billie and Brad’s split, since the latter blamed himself and acted out in increasingly detrimental ways. “I wanted to give both Billie and Brad everything that they’d wanted before,” Rukeyser continues. “Like, ‘It’s not too late, it’s never too late, you can have what you want.’ I wanted to give it all to them.”
In fact, Billie, Brad, Sasha and Cooper all have so much — including ideal partners, professional success and healthy relationships with their exes — fans might be worried this is the end of the road for them. Rukeyser begs to disagree, and points to the apparent lynchpin of Brad and Billie’s happily ever after as proof: their soon-to-arrive baby.
“It was important that we get to a satisfying and a meaningful place with each character this season,” the writer says. But, Rukeyser also wanted to create some excitement — and mystery — around Billie’s future. After all, when we first meet Billie in Season 1, her postpartum marriage has left her unfulfilled. Rukeyser wonders if the same fate could be possible with “fabulously sexy” Brad.
“Is Billie able to still be all parts of herself and be that ravenous sex goddess while she’s breastfeeding yet another baby?” Rukeyser asks.
The answer isn’t actually what’s important — it’s our ability to ask the question that matters. As Rukeyser says, “I feel there are always more stories to tell with these characters and more stories to tell in the Sex/Life universe.”
