Based on a True Story 's killer on playing that 'delicious cat-and-mouse thing' and season 2 hopes
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season 1 finale of Based on a True Story, "The Universe."
Talk about a killer ending.
In the Based on a True Story season 1 finale, Matt (Tom Bateman) takes care of the Ruby (Priscilla Quintana) problem by killing her and dumping her body at Ava and Nathan's rental property, thereby making it their problem. The couple is then left to figure out what to do with the body and evidence as their friends throw them a surprise 10th anniversary party. Meanwhile, Matt is trying to iron out his big ideas for a spin-off of the podcast, and it's revealed that he and Ava's sister, Tory (Liana Liberato), are in a relationship of some kind. It all ends with Ruby's husband, Simon (Aaron Staton), walking in on a flabbergasted Ava and Nathan (Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina) as they're cleaning his dead wife's blood off their floor.
It's a lot to take in — and it leaves several interesting avenues open for a potential season 2. Cuoco, Messina, and Bateman agree they'd love to do more. In fact, Bateman says when series creator and executive producer Craig Rosenberg approached him about the show, he had ideas for several seasons laid out already.
"He's really got this plan mapped out in his head," Bateman tells EW. "And I feel that with where it ends, season 1 is just so delicious. And you think, 'Let's have a second helping of that, please.'"
To prepare for his role as the enigmatic serial killer Matt, Bateman read The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, of which the British actor says, "The sort of common thing with all of these different psychopaths was they have no empathy, that they are constantly observing the people that they're talking to and creating very, very quickly a mask that they wear, that is pleasing to the person in order to seduce and control them effectively. And that was an amazing starting point for me."
PEACOCK Tom Bateman as Matt in 'Based on a True Story'
Despite the gruesome nature of playing such a character, Bateman says he "feels very lucky" to have played Matt. "In a way, Matt kind of summarizes the whole energy of the show, do you know what I mean? He's very, very dark. He's very, very funny. He's stupid. He's vain. He's narcissistic. He's kind of trying to be sweet and tender and caring sometimes. He can be a nice guy. He's all of these things mashed up into one person. So I got to, I felt, embody the heartbeat of the piece just in playing that role," he explains.
Cuoco and Messina say they wouldn't mind playing a similar darkness in their characters. When EW suggests that they could, in a season 2, potentially kill Simon and grapple with the idea that they're really not so different than Matt, the stars get excited.
"Turning totally dark — that's actually really cool. Yeah, I like that. Nice job," Cuoco says with a laugh.
"I like where you're going with that. I like the idea of becoming more and more like Matt. That's a fun character arc for the both of us," Messina says, adding, "I hope that we could be like a Bonnie and Clyde kind of thing, where we could just keep screwing up and keep going further and further into darkness. That would be interesting to me."
There's one thing that Cuoco does not want to see happen for her character, though. "I just hope I'm not pregnant again," she says. The star, who gave birth to her first child in March, was pregnant throughout the entirety of shooting season 1, and her pregnancy was written into her character's arc accordingly. Ever quick with a joke at his costar's expense, Messina quips on queue, "Me too. It's a real pain in the ass. Let me tell you. It was a lot on all of us, let me say."
Friendly joking aside, their characters would have a baby to deal with next season, since Ava ends the first season at the end of her pregnancy. "There would be a baby. We'd have to deal with that," Cuoco says, adding, "Well, there's gonna be a lot to deal with in season 2. There's a lot of things that we did."
PEACOCK Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina in 'Based on a True Story'
Having rid himself of his latest victim, Matt ends the first season in the arms of Tory, but it's unclear how long they've had a thing. Has it been going on longer than it appears? Bateman says he doesn't think so. "My instinct with that is that it's a kind of play to be even further behind enemy lines. Because Matt can feel them pulling away from him, he can feel that they're getting a bit scared, they're in over their head. And there might be a world in which they go to the police, and just confess everything and say, 'Send us to jail.' And the way to stop that is to make it not only about the two of them, but her sister as well," he says.
It's Bateman's hope that this angle gets explored more in potential future episodes. "I personally would like to see him f--- with their family unit a little bit more," he says. "I think what I enjoyed as an actor, and I think Matt as a character enjoys, is that sort of delicious cat-and-mouse thing where he enjoyed being the cat to their mice. So I'd like to see that a lot more."
He continues, "It can become a game of chess at this point, where they all know each other, they know everything about each other. The three of them are trying to control each other, and they're trying to keep me on the reins, and I'm trying to bite through the reins and drag them off the cliff. And I think that sort of tug of war is quite fun. I'd like to see that happen, personally."
Bateman admits he also hopes to see control freak Matt "sweat a little bit" and find himself in "a bit of hot water" for once.
But, that's getting ahead of himself. For now, he says, "We just have to see if an audience gets into it and really enjoys it. And I hope they do, because we had a great fun time making it, and I do feel there's more road to be explored with it."
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