"Good Trouble" Has Officially Been Renewed For Season 4, And Here's Some Inside Scoop On What To Expect Next Season
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Warning: There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Good Trouble, including the Season 3 finale.
Good Trouble Season 3 just came to an end, and honestly, it was one hell of a ride.
The season finale featured several cliffhangers, including Callie questioning her career choices, Evan betraying Mariana, Davia deciding between Dennis and Matt, and much more.
So, to celebrate Season 3 AND Good Trouble being renewed for Season 4, showrunner Joanna Johnson sat down with us to dive into everything from the finale and tease what to expect next season. Here's everything we learned:
1.First, Joanna "loved" writing the final scene between Callie and Judge Wilson, and that moment will lead to a lot of changes for Callie in Season 4.
"It's such a culmination of Callie being a character who has always been reactionary. She has gotten derailed from what she really went into law for," Joanna said. "She's having to kind of deal with that and she's reflecting. There are changes coming for that character. She's sort of locked in the same pattern of doing the same old things. It's time to make some changes for her."
2.After coming up with Kathleen Gale, Joanna knew that Constance Zimmer was perfect for the job — she even told Constance that she is one of "the bravest actors" she knows.
"I have been a huge Constance Zimmer fan. She's a mom at the school that my kids go to. I was watching UnREAL and I was like, 'Oh I would love to talk to her and tell her how amazing she is.' I eventually met her and I told her that she's one of the bravest actors I know. We started talking and then she asked if she could direct an episode, which she ended up doing," Joanna explained. "She shadowed the show and we got to know each other better. I had the character of Kathleen in mind, who I based on Kathleen from Making a Murderer. I couldn't believe she wanted to do the show. I just adore her and I'm so grateful she's on our show."
3.With the introduction of Kathleen, Joanna said she really wanted to bring in a "female mentor" for Callie but also a character who helped Callie realize that no one "lives a perfect life."
"I really wanted it to be a female mentor, and, of course, a totally different character than Wilson. Somebody who would challenge her and push her buttons," Joanna explained. "I wanted Callie this season to see that the world isn't black and white, that most of us live our lives in the gray areas. You can't be 100% perfect every minute of your life. I wanted a character that could teach her that and push her a little."
4.Constance Zimmer and Maia Mitchell helped "elevate" each other's performances during Good Trouble Season 3, and the mentor relationship will help push Callie's story forward in Season 4.
Joanna said, "Constance and Maia have such great chemistry. I think that she's upped Maia's game and they just have such a great dynamic. I kind of loved the dynamic Callie had with Judge Wilson in the first season, and I missed that. So I wanted to bring another mentor character in."
5.The Season 3 finale ends on several cliffhangers, one of them being that we don't know the outcome of Kathleen and Callie's case, and that was intentional.
Joanna explained, "The reason I decided not to do the verdict is because I ran out of running time. Also, I did think, 'Well, if you want a good cliffhanger, that certainly is one.'"
6.One of the things Good Trouble wanted to show this season was Mariana struggling, which is something we haven't really seen since The Fosters.
"I love seeing Mariana struggling between the old Mariana and the new Mariana. You know, she's trying to grow up and being mature, but she's still the person who wants to get what she wants," Joanna said. "I love seeing her struggle and not being a partner anymore with the Fight Club girls. She broke my heart and that's what Cierra [Ramirez] does so great."
7.And Season 4 will dive into Evan and Mariana's complicated relationship, Evan's betrayal, and if Mariana could be with Evan without losing her friends.
"As far as Evan, I love him. I love TJ [Linnard], who plays the role too. People really like this couple and the trick when you're writing a show like this, and I think William Goldman wrote this once about rom-coms, he said, 'Your rom-com is only as good as the device that keeps the characters apart.' That really hit me and I think that's true for serialized television because you want to keep the audience wanting. You can't have everybody happy all the time. So, keeping Mariana and Evan apart I think allowed for some rich stories. I like the idea of Mariana dealing with the loyalty to her friends and what her betraying them has led to. She got the meeting with Jackie through Evan, and now Mariana is going to deal with the consequences. She loves Evan, I think, but can she be with him without losing her friends and her partners?"
8.Joanna had a pregnancy storyline in mind for a while, and Priscilla Quintana returning as Isabella in Season 3 proved to be the perfect time to tell it.
"Sometimes our stories get dictated by actor availability. So we had Priscilla Quintana as Isabella and she had to go back to another show that she was on. We didn't know if that show was gonna get picked up or not, so we had to write her off kind of quickly. But I always wanted her to come back, and I had this story in mind for a long time."
9.One thing Good Trouble wanted to explore was what happens when you get pregnant alongside "a stranger" and someone you were never in a relationship with.
"I know soaps always have somebody get pregnant, but what I wanted us to do, which is a little different, is explore this idea of what do you do when you're faced with being a parent when you didn't plan it, aren't ready for it, and you're young?" Joanna said. "What happens to your dreams when you suddenly have this responsibility looming? Also, I love the idea of what do you do when you're pregnant with a stranger? When you really don't know the other person at all and now you have to co-parent? I'm interested in how do you parent a child together when you were never in a relationship with the other person. Those are the things I thought were interesting and made this storyline a little different."
10.And Joanna loved "redeeming Isabella, but also having her keep [the audience] on edge," and her relationship with Gael will continue to unfold more in Season 4, especially now that Callie and Gael have called it quits.
Joanna continued, saying, "That's something we'll be playing with next season, which I'm excited about. Just the evolution of Gael and Isabella's relationship. Also, you know, should they be together? Could they be together? There are so many questions and ways to go with it."
11.Davia and Dennis weren't originally planned to be love interests when Good Trouble began, but Emma Hunton and Josh Pence's chemistry changed all that.
Joanna revealed, "I love those characters, and it was never our intention for them to be romantic interests. It just happened. The chemistry between them just happened. Once we saw that happening, it was like, 'Well, this is the direction we need to go.' It just evolved beautifully. I love their chemistry together. I love Dennis and Davia's relationship and I love seeing it evolve."
12.Also, putting Davia and Dennis in a love triangle with Matt this season allowed the show to explore even more with those characters.
"I think putting them in a triangle has been super interesting because Matt is really charming and a really nice guy," Joanna said. "I love the actor [Erik Stocklin] and what he's done with it too."
13.One of the reasons for keeping Davia and Dennis romantically apart in Season 3 was so that Dennis could "choose to live again" and feel comfortable finding joy with Davia.
Joanna explained, "They needed to have their own arcs. I think Dennis needed to choose to live again. I can't even imagine losing a child, but at some point in life, you have to decide, 'Am I going to be swallowed up by grief or am I going to honor the memory of the person I lost by honoring my own life?' It took Dennis a long time to get to [that place], but I really like seeing him coming out of that and seeing his recovery, and seeing him find some joy. I think with Davia, he felt guilty having joy with her. I think he felt like he didn't have the right to be happy, but we got to see him figure everything out and get to where he is at the end of Season 3."
14.And if you're like me and you're dying to know what happens with Davia and Dennis next, the resolution to the Season 3 finale cliffhanger with them has already been filmed.
Joanna revealed, "To be honest, we already shot the rest of the story, but again, we decided to hold it as a cliffhanger because I thought it was more powerful. So it's in the can, but no one will know until the premiere of Season 4."
15.Alice's diversity comedy troupe storyline was one of Joanna's favorites, and it helped continue to show how Good Trouble talks about social issues not a lot of other shows discuss.
"Writing that story, there was no way for us to predict the hate crimes against Asian people this last year," Joanna explained. "People often ask me how we are so ahead of some of these issues, like social justice issues, and I'm like, we're just acknowledging things that are there that people aren't looking at. These things have sadly been going on forever. It's not like we predicted racism, it's been here. I love Alice's story this season and I loved working with Sherry Cola on that story. Also, I really, really liked examining these diversity programs. We have to realize that sometimes these programs aren't truly inclusive. We have to make sure we are being truly inclusive and allowing people to have a depth of opportunity and not just pigeonholing people."
16.In fact, during the Lunar New Year episode, Sherry and Kara Wang consulted on the episode, and Sherry was able to make Alice's speech very personal.
"I loved the Lunar New Year episode," Joanna said. "In the Lunar New Year episode, we asked Sherry and Kara Wang, who plays Sumi, to consult us on the episode so that we got everything right. Sherry has that speech after they do the dance, and I just told her to make it her own and make it personal. She really took what was written and made it her own. I loved that she did that, and it showed."
17.And finally, Malika's sexuality storyline in Season 3 allowed the character to grow past just being an activist.
Joanna explained, "One thing we wanted to grow with Malika's character is she's not just an activist. We wanted to grow her personal journey as well and explore her sexuality. That's what you should be doing in your 20s anyway. You should be exploring your relationships and figuring out who you are."
