The first season of "Unstable" concluded in the most
chaotic way possible: Ellis Dragon (Rob Lowe) vengefully set fire to his
friend-turned-rival Jean’s (Christina Chang) car. Season 2 dives headfirst into
the fallout from that fiery decision — focusing on Ellis preparing to face the
consequences in the most Ellis way imaginable.
In
the first four minutes of the new season, which you can watch above, the
eccentric tech billionaire role-plays prison life in his basement with his
therapist, Leslie (Fred Armisen). Naturally, Ellis’s son Jackson (John Owen
Lowe) points out just how absurd the situation is.
“I’ve
always wanted to do a gritty, hard-hitting Midnight Express-type prison drama,
and this is as close as I think I’ll ever get to come as an actor,” Rob Lowe
tells Tudum with a laugh. “But to prepare for it — like my heroes such as
Daniel Day-Lewis — I stayed in that prison set for at least 10 or 15 minutes
before we shot it.”
“It’s
true. His commitment was unparalleled,” John Owen Lowe jokes. “Prison Ellis was
one of my favorite iterations of Ellis.” However, Prison Ellis is short-lived
because, as the clip reveals, Ellis’s business partner Anna (Sian Clifford)
pulls some strings and helps him avoid jail time. But that doesn’t mean their
company is out of trouble. Both Anna and the board believe Dragon needs a new
face. Could Jackson step into that role? Would he even want to, given his
desire for independence?
“What’s
so funny about that journey… is that quest to pull away and how there’s this
innate gravitational pull back in,” says John Owen. “We really exaggerate it
with Jackson and Ellis because there’s this one shining moment where it seems
like we’re going to see Jackson in his true form, having some space. And then
what’s so fun about Season 2 is we just maxed out how hard Ellis could suck him
back into his world in the cruelest ways possible.”
The
opening minutes of Season 2 also tease the arrival of Iris Apatow as Anna’s
stepdaughter Georgia, who becomes an intern at Dragon. Introducing Georgia
allowed the writers to achieve one of their goals for the new season.
“There
was a desire to see Anna humanized a bit more, to see her backstory, and get
more of a glimpse into what her life is outside of Ellis — which, there isn’t
much life outside of Ellis for her,” says John Owen. Apatow isn’t the only new
addition this season. You can also expect to see Fargo’s Lamorne Morris as
another biotech creator who stokes the rivalry between Ellis and Jackson.
Make
sure you watch "Unstable" Season 2 when it premieres on August 1.
