What To Know
- Ride or Die creator Tessa Coates discusses Billy’s shocking death and confirms whether he could make a comeback in a potential second season.
- Plus, Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer share their love for the fallen character.
Ride or Die may be all about the friendship and adventures between pals Debbie (Octavia Spencer) and Judith (Hannah Waddingham), but it’s difficult not to find criminal Billy Donovan (Ed Skrein) endearing. Warning: Spoilers for Ride or Die Season 1 ahead!
He teams up with the women when they mercifully save him from the Albanian mob, who is after him for a failed business deal. When Billy tells them he knows how to fix it and end the pursuit of the mobsters, they join forces for some epic shenanigans.
But when the operation leads them to a bank in Geneva, an attempted van getaway unveils that Billy had his throat slit and Judith sadly has to leave the lifeless criminal behind. While we agree that he seems fairly dead, a moment from the finale has us second-guessing Billy’s fate when Judith and Debbie lead disgruntled assassin Ana (Sylvia Hoeks) to her death over a cliff, perishing in a fiery crash below.
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Debbie tells Judith they’re going to hike down the cliff to make sure Ana is dead, which is a move that more characters in films and TV should consider if they want to save themselves time and aggravation. Meanwhile, when it comes to Billy, there’s no lingering around to see if maybe there’s a shot he’s still alive.
When we asked Waddingham and Spencer if there’s a character they’d like to see resurrected in a potential second season, the answer was unanimous. “Can you un-slit a throat?” Waddingham asked.
“I want Billy to come back. You know, we love Billy,” Spencer said, adding, “I was really rooting for the two of them,” alluding to the relationship that was building between Billy and Judith.
“I was really shocked reading that as late on as I did,” Waddingham noted.
This echoes what show creator Tessa Coates had to say about Billy’s demise and its effect, as she revealed regarding Season 2 hopes, “That was a request from a member of the cast being like, twins? He comes back in a flashback? He comes back as a ghost? I think Billy is dead, unfortunately,” Coates confirmed.
As she pointed out, Billy was Judith’s intended target in the premiere episode, “so he was on borrowed time right from the beginning.” Even if Billy’s death worked for the story, Coates admitted it wasn’t an easy choice. “We love Billy, too, and we really thought about [keeping him alive, but] we were like, no, this has to happen.”
So, for anyone holding out hope that Billy is alive and well, take Coates’ words for it: He’s sadly a casualty among Ride or Die‘s fallen Season 1 characters. What did you think of his death? Let us know in the comments section below, and stay tuned for any potential updates surrounding the show’s future as we await renewal news.
Ride or Die, Season 1, Streaming now, Prime Video