Sterling Point: The Cast and Showrunner Answer Your Burning Season 1 Questions
What a chaotic summer on the island!
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 ofSterling Point. Read at your own risk!]
There’s a new YA drama in town, and it’s a great one. Megan Park follows up her critically acclaimed feature film My Old Ass with Sterling Point, a Prime Video original series about estranged and found families coming together on a scenic Canadian lake. Ella Rubin and Amélie Hoeferle star as Annie and Ramona, respectively, two sisters who discover each other when their late grandfather leaves them the vacation island where their mother grew up. Annie and her twin brother, Connor (Keen Ruffalo), were adopted by Ramona’s biological parents before their marriage imploded, leaving Annie and Connor to be raised by their dad in New York, completely unaware of Ramona’s existence or their connection to Sterling Point.
Their mom died giving birth to Ramona some time after Steven (Jay Duplass) took the twins back to New York City. Ramona grew up with their grandfather until he died shortly before Season 1 begins. When Annie arrived on the island to investigate this family she never knew she had, she and Ramona ended up on a crash course to becoming sisters, and everyone around them got swept up in their dysfunctional drama.
Marriages were upended. Teenagers were forced to grow up. Hearts were broken and put back together. Sterling Point has all the hallmarks of a great YA series, and the first season ended with plenty of loose ends that will have the audience clamoring for Season 2 and what’s next for these flawed and engaging characters.
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TV Guide spoke with Sterling Point showrunner and director Megan Park and the cast to get at least some teases for those burning questions. Here’s what we know as we cross our fingers that Prime Video announces another season ASAP.
What inspired that incredibleCamp Rockbirthday party?
Connor follows his sister to Sterling Point halfway through the season and demands they celebrate their shared birthday in style. He ropes Sully (Nikko Angelo Hinayo) into organizing a Camp Rock-themed extravaganza. It’s one of the most memorable set pieces of the entire season, and is reminiscent of the iconic Justin Bieber dance performance in My Old Ass.
Megan Park (creator and showrunner): It was not taken from my own life. I kind of missed the Camp Rock thing because I was a little out of it in terms of age. I certainly heard the lore around Poot. I’ve been educated by the Gen Z people that I know. My au pair gave me the full rundown. She is 22, and she really knew a lot about it. A lot of these things just come out of conversations with the cast… So this was a mix of people in the writers’ room who were Gen Z, who were very much defined by Camp Rock, and then a good education on the Poot lore came from my au pair.
Do any of these parents actually… parent?
Annie is only 17 and absconds to Canada without her father Steven knowing because he thinks she’s going to Asia with her boyfriend. Connor is able to follow her without any real parental questions. Meanwhile, Joe (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has a very poor grasp on which kids he’s fathered and hasn’t. Denise (Missi Pyle) is helping her son throw ragers for his teenage friends. Oona (Bo Bragason) and Maple’s (Mabel Strachan) mom bailed on them for another continent, and we have no idea when, or if, she’s ever coming back. The adults are even more of a mess than the kids, so we had to ask Park who is doing the worst job when it comes to looking after these children. She’s a lot more sympathetic than most people would be.
Park: I think I put Denise last on that list. Denise is just a little bit in her own world, but such a scene stealer. I think both of the dads are trying their best. They’ve made a lot of mistakes. You’re catching them at a moment in time where they’re also losing a little bit of control of their kids for the first time. The kids are turning 18. The parents are navigating having adult children for the first time. I hope that by the end of the series, people realize that the adults f— up and make some probably regrettable choices, but they are also just people with flaws who didn’t know how to deal with grief and make the right decision.
Is there any chance of Joe and Kate making up?
Listen, Joe had a big hole to dig himself out of when it looked like he cheated on his wife and never claimed his love child (Ramona) with another woman. It only got worse when it came to light that Steven was actually Ramona’s biological dad. So his marriage blew up for no reason, and he’s not great at asking important follow-up questions about his life events. It looks pretty bad for his chances of making up with his wife, but it is something both actors are looking forward to exploring in Season 2.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Joe, Ellis’ father): I feel like Joe is going to have a lot of uses digging his way out with his wife. I don’t see this panning out real well for him. I think it makes matters worse that Ramona isn’t his child. In fact, it just shows how unaware he is, and Kate is over Joe’s bulls—.
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Kate, Joe’s wife and Ellis’ mother): The truth always comes to the surface at some point. I was heartbroken for Kate. I was heartbroken for that revelation. It’s going to be really hard for them to find each other again if they do manage to work it out.
Has Steven learned enough from Season 1 to be a more present father for Ramona going forward?
Once the truth about Ramona’s parentage comes out, Annie encourages her to go to New York City and spend some time with their dad. She takes her sister up on the offer, and the season ends with her waking up in Annie’s bed in a mirror image of the series’ opening scene. It implies that Steven is going to get a real chance to know this daughter he knew nothing about, but is he actually ready for that challenge?
Jay Duplass (Steven, Annie and Connor’s adoptive father and Ramona’s biological father): It sounds like Ramona is in need of some parenting, or at least some parental love. We found out late in the game that Ramona is Steven’s, and he’s going to get a second chance at parenting. He could not do it in the wake of deep personal tragedy. That’s exciting to see and think about. I think we also know that no matter the circumstances, parenting is a motherf—er. It’s not going to be easy no matter what.
Was there supposed to be sexual tension between Connor and Denise?
Denise is a flirt. She also, arguably, has too familiar a relationship with her son, Rory (Daniel Quinn-Toye), and his friends. That was most palpable every time she was alone with Connor. Were there actually vibes between these two, though? Or was it just natural chemistry?
Park: There was not supposed to really be sexual tension between them. That is just sort of Denise’s vibe with everybody that she interacts with. That’s definitely between her and Oona. There’s that great moment in Episode 1 when Oona is just ruthlessly hitting on her, which came through organically in a really funny way.
Is Connor OK?
Speaking of Connor, he delivers a lot of the comedic relief in Sterling Point Season 1, but our charming boy has feelings! He’s not coping with all of these revelations and Annie’s dramatics as he appears, and that’s something that needs to be addressed in Season 2.
Keen Ruffalo (Connor, Annie’s twin brother): Connor’s a great example of using comedy to mask that discomfort and otherness he feels. One of the harder things for me to grapple with was the fact that a lot of humor is to cope with his own insecurities and otherness.
Park: Connor has feelings. I love the idea that the one person Annie is biologically related to is the one she is least like and fights with the most. Connor is a dark horse. He was so fun to write and play around with. Keen is so funny and so genius that it is sort of a surprise. Not caring is Connor’s defense mechanism, and he started to put those walls up to hide behind that. Then you realize that he has been under the thumb of letting Annie lead the way emotionally. Then he’s like, “Oh wait, I’m an adult now. I can do what I want and separate from her.” He can cut the cord a little bit from his sister and make his own decisions for the first time, which is scary for him.
What else is on Maple’s reading list?
Maple (Mabel Strachan) is one of the most worldly 12-year-olds to show up on TV. She’s potentially the most grounded of this teenage found-family-friend-group, and that probably has something to do with the advanced reading she was doing throughout the season. She’s checking out books that are way above her grade level. Here’s what Megan Park thinks Maple will be reading next.
Park: Maybe we’ll run towards some Sarah Polley, throwing some more Canadian classic things in there. I was at the bookstore the other day, and I took a picture and sent it to some of the cast members. It was a book called “Nuclear War” by Annie Jacobson about the decline of what’s going to happen in the world. That seems like a Maple read. We’d have to cheat the author’s name.
Sterling PointSeason 1 is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
