All American nudged its still-grieving fanbase a bit nearer to acceptance on Monday evening, by means of a flashback scene that provided closure on Billy’s tragic dying.
The demise of Taye Diggs’ beloved character was initially left to viewers’ imaginations and stored offscreen throughout Billy’s ultimate episode on Feb. 13. On Monday, although, Jabari shared the small print of Billy’s dying along with his widow Laura, and we watched as Billy climbed again onto that overturned bus weeks in the past to assist Jabari get out. The bus continued to creak because it balanced on the sting of a cliff — and when Jabari rotated as he was exiting the car, he realized that Billy was hanging again, seemingly realizing he couldn’t take one other step with out the entire bus toppling.
“Inform my household I really like them,” Billy urged Jabari, and that’s the place Jabari’s recollection ended.
“Should you discover, the minute he helps Jabari up and the bus retains rocking, that’s the minute he tells Jabari that he ought to go first,” showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll factors out to TVLine. “It’s the minute Billy knew, ‘Two of us don’t make it off.’ But when he instructed Jabari that within the second, Jabari by no means would have left the bus. So he needed to inform him, ‘I’ll be proper behind you.’ And it’s not till Jabari turns again round [that he] realizes Billy isn’t transferring. And it’s not shock on Billy’s face. It’s nearly acceptance, as a result of he realized a pair minutes in the past that that was his destiny.”
Within the wake of Billy’s sudden passing, All American has put a special character’s grief within the highlight for every subsequent episode: Laura was the middle of Episode 12, whereas Episode 13 on Monday revolved round Olivia; Episodes 14 and 15 will respectively give attention to Jordan and Spencer. In accordance with Carroll, “we wished them to take us by way of as they discover their method again to pleasure,” which can also be why Billy’s dying went unseen for a number of weeks.
“It’s a vital a part of your therapeutic course of once you resolve you do wish to know the small print,” the EP elaborates. “We wished to take that journey with Laura the place she had reached that place of eager to know what his ultimate moments had been like, and we’d expertise it at the moment together with her. In order that was a really acutely aware selection to carry that and use it when Laura wanted to listen to it.”
Olivia, in the meantime, struggled to remain sober whereas mourning her father throughout Monday’s episode, however she finally obtained by way of the day with out taking a drink — one thing that was fairly essential to Carroll whereas writing the script.
“We’ve seen the relapsed model of [Olivia]. We’ve seen the model of her that fought her village on their lack of help,” Carroll says. “So what appears completely different now, when the world is ripped out from underneath her? How can we honor the expansion and the expansion of her village? How does that model of Olivia take care of a loss this nice? [Samantha Logan, who plays Olivia] did such an outstanding job… It was everybody’s greatest work, and it was an honor to take a seat there and watch it unfold.”
