The twists keep right on coming throughout all eight episodes of Peacock’s new drama The Five-Star Weekend. The series follows famed home cook Hollis Shaw (Jennifer Garner) as she grapples with the sudden death of her husband by inviting friends from all eras of her life to her Nantucket manor for a meticulously planned luxury getaway.
Though things start on a celebratory note, several bombshell revelations surface throughout the weekend, changing everything Hollis knew about her life… for better and for worse.
TV Insider caught up with the cast and creatives of the series to discuss how the series ended and what might be next. Warning: There are spoilers below for all eight episodes of The Five-Star Weekend.
Hollis’ husband had an affair … and things got very complicated.
It doesn’t take long for audiences to learn that Hollis’ physician husband, Matthew (Josh Hamilton), was having an affair before his death — and that his paramour was Gigi (Gemma Chan), the woman who befriended Hollis after he died under the auspices of shared grief. As jaw-dropping as that reveal is, it’s even more shocking to learn that Matthew had a change of heart in the end; he was actually turning around from a planned trip to see Gigi and had called it off with her before his fateful accident. In the end, Hollis decides to kindly send Gigi away with a homemade goodbye treat.
As for why Gigi even comes in the first place (and what she expects to happen), Gemma Chan guessed, “She’s drawn to Hollis, she’s curious, she obviously feels a lot of guilt. And then when she gets there, she’s seesawing between wanting to just get everything off her chest and then being terrified to, and then she also meets this amazing group of women who — she hasn’t had close female friendships before, and I think she really is longing for that, and she genuinely really cares about them.”
Brooke finally realizes who she really was.
The weekend is also revelatory for Brooke (D’Arcy Carden), as she finally realizes that her marriage is a sham because her husband likely has committed sexual harassment against a colleague and she’s gay.
“I think there was something about being with other women, women that she hadn’t spent every day with, these new women that she kind of idolizes, and all of them being so cool with who they were and when little bits of Brooke’s real personality came out, it’s almost like they accepted her more than when her fake personality came out,” D’Arcy Carden said of her character’s arc. “I think she started to feel like who she is is OK. There was a welcoming of these women.”
Tatum’s relationship with Hollis is stronger … and right on time.
The finale reveals that Tatum’s (Chloe Sevigny) worst fears have come true: She does indeed have breast cancer. Luckily, she and Hollis have patched up the bonds that’d been broken between them.
As Chloe Sevigny explained, “I think she has an ownership over the island, which is also a big character in the show, and their childhood, and things that she finds very sacred, but I think there’s a long period of time where they weren’t friends or didn’t have a closeness, so I think she’s really kind of mourning and or recognizing that void and how she has missed that and missed opportunities to connect with Hollis because of choices they each made… She’s trying to figure out how to mend that and find the closeness again… but I think by the end she really loves all these women, and they have this bond, and they form a friendship — except maybe for Gigi.”
Dru-Ann keeps her client.
Throughout her entire stay in Nantucket, Dru-Ann (Regina Hall) is dealing with a crisis of her own. After saying something mildly negative about her top client, she’s publicly dropped from representing her… until the client makes the grave mistake of skipping out on a game to attend one of her boyfriend’s. Though Dru-Ann’s assistant is all too eager to distance her from the client’s PR mess, Dru-Ann decides to not only keep her on, but to mentor her on a more personal level — after all, she’s experienced what it’s like to have an athletic downfall in her own life.
Caroline chooses her mom.
After Caroline (Harlow Shaw) finally comes clean to her mom about her resentments about her father’s death and the fact that she’s dropping out of college, things finally become real between the mother-daughter duo. Though they initially say goodbye in the end, Caroline ultimately returns to her mother’s side.
Hollis finds love again … maybe?
Things come full circle for Hollis when she feels the same sparks with Jack (Timothy Olyphant) that she did when they were kids. First loves are never forgotten, of course, but now the reasons for their original split have disappeared.
Creator Bekah Brunstetter is rooting for the two to be endgame, saying, “It’s not black or white, because it’s not necessarily the story of, ‘Oh, Hollis should have ended up with him,’ right? It’s more like a story of second chances, and just going with your life as your life evolves, and just this idea that you change as you go throughout life, and that there’s still people that stay with you. But it’s bittersweet, because there was still love with her husband, too, and if she hadn’t met her husband, she wouldn’t have her daughter and that life.”
Meanwhile, director Minkie Spiro added, “I love this idea that a teenage friendship is rekindled, and that the reasons that they split up weren’t really strong enough reasons for the split, and that it is back to second chances, and I think there’s such an electricity between the two of them that is undeniable, that you just are rooting for them. There’s something, you know, that Jen G brings to it, where she does struggle with the loss of Matthew, while also having this second chance, and I think that that wave that she rides through the show is really beautiful.”
Watch the above-embedded video for these and even more comments from the cast and creators of The Five-Star Weekend!
The Five-Star Weekend, Streaming Now, Peacock