Shadow and Act spoke with stars Penn Badgley, Tati Gabrielle, Lukas Gage, Tilly Keeper, Amy-Leigh Hickman and Ed Speleers surprising twists and most-shocking moments in the show’s fourth installment.

On the biggest twist of all– that the Rhys that we saw most of the season was a hallucination of Joe’s– Badgley said that this ultimately revealed a lot about the state of his troubled character, calling Joe looking within the most “natural” and “emotionally resonant” progression.

“I think it’s the most beautiful and human evolution of the show,” he told us. “Because he’s essentially an irredeemable character, he’s an essentially unreliable narrator, he’s essentially a bad person, right? I mean, the dude won’t stop killing people like that, right? So, so, so what is this whole exercise we’re doing, we’re looking at the concept of love. Like what do we think love is? What do we think love does? Is it capable of changing people? How much change are people capable of? What does a real love relationship look like…rather than objectification, you know, possession, competition, and that kind of thing. I think frankly, whether or not Joe is realizing it, we, the show are realizing, ‘Oh, the things I’m looking for that I want, and the things that make me angry and challenge me the most, they’re actually all in me. They’re not in someone else.'”

On Gabrielle’s Marienne surviving and escaping, the actress says it is a testament to the resilience of women of color.

She explained, “I think it very much speaks to the sort of inherited strength and resilience that people of color, and particularly women of color have just through life. We’ve been sort of born with this force or this power that doesn’t allow us to lay down easily and that doesn’t allow us to become [a] victim of circumstance and [allows us to] fight our hardest to get out of anything particular situation to save our life. I feel like all people of color, and particularly women of color and particularly mothers, are extremely resourceful and will tap into those resources at any given point when needed. It was extremely important for me and a very a big honor for me that in this show, getting to play that character in Marianne [to] give credit where credit’s due and sort of send an homage in that way.”