SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils episode seven of Margo’s Got Money Troubles, titled “Lariat Takedown.”
Careful stunt planning and choreography underlie the devastating discovery of an unconscious Jinx (Nick Offerman) in a running bathtub with a heroine needle sticking out of his arm in the seventh episode of Margo’s Got Money Troubles.
In an episode that just keeps piling stresses onto Margo’s (Elle Fanning) brewing legal battle for custody of her son Bodhi — sparked by Mark (Michael Angeleno) — the titular character and her roommate Susie (Thaddea Graham) figure out that her father, former professional wrestler Jinx ,has been in the bathroom too long as a result of his relapse into drug use after his back injury was aggravated earlier on in the season.
“I feel like the times we see Jinx leading up to [it], the hints that we give the audience, or not, in hindsight, where they say, ‘Aha, I see how we got there.’ Those, I think, are much more important to me for the storytelling,” Offerman told Deadline. “And then when we get to the actual performance of the tragedy, that becomes really technical. Because, in truth, the entire scene is kind of played unconsciously, or very subconsciously, and so it just becomes really technical about performing the stunt safely. “
Margo addressed the possibility of this happening with her father earlier on in the show when he half suggested, half asked if he could move in with Margo and Susie. Assuring Margo that he was clean, Jinx also stressed that having roommates would give him reasons to “perform sanity.”
“It’s heartbreaking, but also it’s heartbreaking because of Nick Offerman and how he has played Jinx up to that point, and the humanity that he brings to that character,” Offerman’s costar and executive producer Fanning said of the event. “What’s so interesting about this show and all the characters is, they’re so flawed, they’re trying to have a second chance at life. They’re also all judged in their own way by society, whether it’s by their income, their occupation, their outward appearance, and they’re judged for their struggles as well.”
Jinx, fresh out of rehab, returned to Fullerton primarily to check in on Margo after she had repeatedly reached out, with little success, to tell him that she was pregnant and then had a baby. He did have the ulterior motive of scoping out a potential rekindled romance with Margo’s mother Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer) as well, but Shyanne has just married Kenny (Greg Kinnear).
“In Jinx’s case, it’s so delicate. Also the way that Nick played him in threading that needle up until [episode] seven, where you see it slightly just unraveling, and he’s trying to hold on,” Fanning added. “He tackled that so beautifully and with so much care, I think. It was one of the heavier days, I have to say, on set, just because of the subject matter. But I think that’s what is real about this show is that we get to go to those places, but then also have the levity. It’s like life.”
Leading up to his relapse, glimpses of Jinx backsliding can be caught in his red eyes, his retreat to his room, reclusive behavior and also in the way he approaches decorating a Christmas tree for the holidays.
“[The relapse] was an extremely important creative point for both of us and for Nick, because the moment in the book was horrifying, disturbing and graphic, and our fear was that we would be asked or directed to tone that down a little bit, and we did not want to,” showrunner David E. Kelley told Deadline. “And Nick, when he read the book, I think that was one of his first questions, ‘Are we really going to go there?’ And the answer was ‘yes.’ To everybody’s satisfaction, no one wanted to back away from the moment, because it was very real, very upsetting.”
Kelley hopes viewers will react like executive producer Eva Anderson did when she first read of this moment in Rufi Thorpe’s book, on which the show is based.
“It’s pretty tough stuff at that point, especially coming from a series that is now leaning a bit comedic at that point of its arc,” he said. “So it’s gonna feel probably like a pretty good ambush to the viewer, but we hope it’s well earned.”
Anderson “screamed” and shut her laptop upon reaching the relapse in Thorpe’s book.
“It was so frustrating and upsetting. At that point, you love Jinx so much. You love him as much as Susie and Margo do,” Anderson told Deadline. “So we knew that we had to portray it in a way that also honored Margo as a mother, the fact that, when you’re showing a baby on a TV show, people are very aware that that’s a real baby. It’s different than a baby in a book, in a way. And so we really felt like we had to make Jinx’s overdose and the consequences of it feel very real for Margo and really highlight how, first and foremost, she’s going to protect her baby at all costs, even if that means she has to throw her dad out.”
It’s Susie who convinces Margo of the tough decision she has to make regarding asking Jinx to leave their home.
“In that moment, number one, it’s, ‘Is he alive? Can we help you?’ And the second is then this protection and this love for Margo and this loyalty to her friend of, we have so much going on here,” Graham said. “There is a child in the house, and I love this man endlessly, but we also have to figure out other things. And I think that that devotion to your friend and to say the hard thing, that is true friendship. To not just go, ‘Okay, no, everything’s fine.’ Those difficult conversations, I think that’s where your friendship lies.”
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