[This story contains major spoilers from the Zero Day finale.]
Zero Day ended with a shock when Robert De Niro‘s politician did the right thing.
As a former U.S. president pulled back into politics to investigate the perpetrators of a deadly cyberattack, De Niro’s George Mullen put aside pressure from both the show’s current president (played by Angela Bassett) and his own wife Sheila Mullen, played by Joan Allen, to not tell the country the full truth of what he uncovered. That truth would be informing Americans about a homegrown attack involving Big Tech, but also elected officials like Speaker of the House Richard Dreyer, played Matthew Modine, and Mullen’s own idealistic daughter, Rep. Alexandra Mullen, played by Lizzy Caplan.
But in the end, that’s exactly what he did. He told the country the truth and faced the consequences. Mullen’s daughter turns herself in, and his wife leaves him; the idea of losing another child is too difficult for her to bear, having previously lost their son to an overdose.
“George Mullen does the right thing, and it costs him everything except his integrity,” co-creator, co-showrunner and executive producer Eric Newman had previously explained to The Hollywood Reporter of the Netflix conspiracy political thriller’s ending and larger takeaway. “The people who want these jobs to govern us have to understand that that is what is asked of them.”
Now speaking to Allen, Caplan and Modine, they each have their own interpretations around their characters’ choices, as well as their own hypotheticals about what their respective futures might look like after the events of Zero Day, which was created as a limited series with no plans for a season two.
In a twist of optimism, Allen says she can’t say that her character, Sheila, leaves husband George forever.
“I think maybe she’s just going away for a month or two. I think she might just go, ‘I need some separation here,’” she tells THR, “but I think there’s enough that happened where it would be worthy of taking a breath, taking some time apart and seeing what happens.”
Sheila was her own political force, and a patriot at that. When her husband appeared to be experiencing cognitive difficulties (a question that the series intentionally leaves open-ended), Sheila was ready to call him on it for the good of the country. Inspiration for her character, she says, existed in real politics.
“I didn’t draw closely, but of course I thought of Hillary Clinton, who I admire greatly,” she says, “Women, like Nancy Pelosi, in public service, they’re giving their lives to it. Very smart, strong, intelligent women. I certainly did think about them, but I used what was in the script and my discussions with [director] Lesli [Linka Glatter] and Bob [De Niro] about what this relationship is, which was a partnership.”
But ultimately, she says losing their daughter proved too much for Sheila to bear. “She says to him, ‘I can’t lose another child.’ It’s a terrible agony,” says Allen. “She loved and believed in him, but I think losing a second a second child is just the straw.”
Newman and co-creator Noah Oppenheim, who created the series with Michael S Schmidt, told THR that Zero Day‘s characters were all amalgamations, intentionally without political party affiliations so the show’s message could be broad and also entertaining.
Caplan says there were shades of some recognizable figures for her rising political daughter — mentioning Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chelsea Clinton and the Bush daughters — but overall, Alex was infused with fiction.
“There isn’t really anybody that fits this bill: the former president’s kid who is very left leaning and has a political career of her own. So I kind of had to create her,” she tells THR.
Alex lays out her defense to her father, explaining how she entered into the conspiracy with an intent to unite a broken country; to bring people together with a little fear, by exposing vulnerabilities, and then remind those on both sides of their ability to govern. But the attack killed 3,000-plus people; she never intended for anyone to die.
“It’s a very extreme way to tackle this issue, but the issue is very real,” Caplan says of what was written on the page. “I think Alex’s intentions were not all bad. I think they were actually kind of good; her execution was not great and her arrogance is not great. It doesn’t always serve people, especially in positions of political power, to think they know better than everybody else. It serves people a lot more, I think, to listen to other people and take advantage of the wisdom of others.”
After the series ends, Newman and Oppenheim had suggested to THR how things could play out for Alex. “It’s possible that, whether she wants to be or not, Alex has become a hero and a martyr,” imagined Oppenheim, noting the chaos that could ensue.
Caplan imagines Alex in a cushy white-collar prison for now, but thinks she’s someone who would probably leave politics behind and “go open a bake shop somewhere in Alaska” after everything that happened. “I don’t know if that would necessarily be good for her to return to politics. There’s got to be some relief that comes with owning up to your worst mistakes and paying a price for it. There’s got to be something redemptive about getting it off your chest,” she says, adding, “I’d like to see her maybe go to very intensive therapy for a few years.”
Then there’s Modine’s Speaker Dryer, who took Alex’s intentions further when he explained to Mullen his vision to cut off the political fringe on both sides for the greater good, fully knowing the damage that their zero-day cyberattack would cause.
Modine stresses to THR how important it was that his character was nonpartisan to deliver that speech, where two men with opposing views, Dreyer and Mullen, spoke with the Washington Monument towering in between them. “It wasn’t a blue tie versus a red tie. It wasn’t Republican versus Democrat. It was an approach to a problem in different ways,” Modine explains. “What’s most important is that what’s happened to American politics is the inability to reach across the aisle and have a conversation. What it feels like is we’ve reached a time where we say, ‘I’m right, you’re wrong. I’m smart, you’re stupid.’ And we don’t do what’s best for the nation.”
He continues, “And that won’t allow American democracy, the great experiment, to be fruitful. It becomes deconstructed and the wheels fall off the car, and we go into a period of darkness and fear. And fear is a powerful weapon. Maybe the most powerful weapon to manipulate people.”
Of the timely series and its message, Linka Glatter, who helmed all six episodes, adds to THR, “That particular scene between Bob and Matthew is one of my favorites, because you have two people who have very opposing views, but they both are saying things that are right. So it’s not about black and white, the good or the bad. It’s about a lot of shades of gray in a very complicated world.”
Zero Day is now streaming all six episodes on Netflix.
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