It Says Something About Cary That Lucas Isn’t a One-Off Character

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Other Two Season 3 Episode 3, “Cary Becomes Somewhat of a Name.”]

Life for Brooke (Heléne Yorke) and Cary (Drew Tarver) could, of course, be going better on The Other Two. But hey, at least they have some success.

After quitting the industry in Episode 2, Brooke decides she’s back in when she attends a party because otherwise, no one she sees as important can see her. She’s out of the industry by the end of the episode. Meanwhile, Cary doesn’t react too well when Curtis (Brandon Scott Jones) gets a role he thought would go to him.

Executive producers Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly break down those key moments and tease what’s ahead.

We see a bit of a crack in Cary and Curtis’ friendship, with the former’s reaction to his friend getting the role he auditioned for. Is that something that’s going to continue throughout the season? Because we’ve already seen how Cary has changed and Curtis’ reaction to that.

Sarah Schneider: It’s funny, you’re really calling out the kind of thesis of this season. The first season, their brother [Case Walker’s Chase] got famous, and that sucked for them. The second season, their mom [Molly Shannon’s Pat] got famous, and that sucked for them. But by the end of the second season, they had sort of come into their own success. They owned their own success a little more, but they’re still who they are. And so, who is left for them to start comparing themselves to or continue comparing themselves to?

Greg Endries/HBO Max

This season, it’s sort of the idea of Brooke with her good fiancé [Josh Segarra’s Lance] and Cary with Curtis, his friend who is seeming to, in that episode, climb the ladder, maybe now even faster than him. And so we like exploring those relationships through the season and seeing Cary, who is always about career and making sure he’s making the moves in his career; it’s all-encompassing to him, it’s so important to him, and what will happen to that character when a person he always assumed would sort of stay in his shadow maybe doesn’t.

Brooke is really leaving the industry at this point. But how is that going to affect her? Because yes, she took the step out, but as we saw, she was waffling a lot. Does she continue to waffle?

Chris Kelly: You shall see. No, she just plants trees for the rest of the season. [Laughs] Yeah. I think you can see that it’s not quite in her, that she’s sort of in character doing the things she’s doing. It’s clear what she really wants, but I think she’s kind of caught up in what she thinks she’s supposed to want. So, yeah, that continues.

Cary’s relationship with Lucas (Fin Argus) pretty much has an expiration date because it doesn’t seem like he’ll ever get to know him outside of his roles, but is that what he’s looking for or needs right now, or is that going to help him figure out what he wants out of a relationship?

Schneider: You’re making good guesses. We’ll see.

Kelly: No, I would say it certainly does feel like it should have an expiration date. And the question is, does it? We’ll see.

Is he so caught up in that relationship because of what he wants out of acting, too?

Schneider: Yeah, I think to Cary, Lucas is sort of — He says it in Episode 4, “That’s acting. That’s a real actor.” He’s caught up in how devoted to this craft that he has put on that is everything to him, and so Lucas, we liked as a foil for Cary because it’s basically acting personified sort of, and it’s this siren of like, “Oh, this is what it could or should feel like or be like or look like.” But it’s obviously busted, and Cary doesn’t see that.

Kelly: Episode 1, Night Nurse, comes out, and it’s great and then Cary’s still left wanting, and he’s kind of looking for why he’s still wanting. And so we thought it was funny that in Episode 2, he meets this guy who’s actually an actor in character, and so you just hope that’s a one-off joke character, and he’s not coming back, but that actor is in the whole season, so… you know what I mean? Then, when he is all of a sudden dating him in Episode 3, it’s like, “What the hell?” And then when he’s complimenting him to other people in Episode 4, you’re like, “What?!” So yeah, that should have been a one-off character, and I think it’s saying something about Cary, hopefully, that he’s back.

The Other Two, Thursdays, HBO Max