A Man on the Inside remains an entertaining comedy that still finds a way to spotlight stories about working through grief.
Season 2, which premiered on Thursday, November 20, checked back in on recently widowed retiree Charles (Ted Danson) as his new career as a private investigator took him to Wheeler College to investigate a blackmailer threatening the college’s president.
The new case introduced Charles to eventual girlfriend Mona (Mary Steenburgen), which brings up some unexpected emotions for his daughter, Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis). After returning for more episodes of the hit Netflix series, Ellis praised the show for finding a way to balance humor with grounded emotional arcs — including Emily still dealing with her mother’s offscreen death.
“When we read [the Thanksgiving episode where Emily faces her grief], I cried. When we did the table read, I was crying and everyone was crying. It’s hard to be a human and we have these [important] relationships,” Ellis, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly. “We get these opportunities in life to heal ourselves and to become closer.”
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Ellis appreciated the message behind A Man on the Inside.
“Sometimes it’s really hard to heal when the person is alive because they’re another person and they have their own needs and desires. Those things don’t always match up. I really love that the writers wrote that [into the show],” she continued. “With Emily and her mom, it wasn’t just this perfect and idyllic relationship. Emily and her mom had disagreements, they fought and like any teenager, Emily didn’t talk to her mom for a while. Through her own experience with her mother, Emily gets to tell Julie [Lilah Richcreek Estrada] that she has this opportunity while her mom is still here and they can make things better.”
The show expanded on the topic through Charles and Emily as well. “I really love how they are so thoughtful about the relationship that they have. They really are concerned about each other’s well-being and making sure that the other person is OK — to the point where they would put their own desires on the back burner, which is what happened in season 1,” Ellis noted. “Emily is taking such care of Charles that she doesn’t attend to her own feelings.”
The actress continued: “That’s the whole thing with the pies and the Thanksgiving episode. She wants to honor her mom and wants to remember her with her dad and not let her memory die. But also, how can we create space together and our relationship for him to have this new relationship that will grow him as a person?”
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In addition to the meaningful holiday episode, Ellis got to explore Emily’s story more as she made a change in her life.
“I did love that we got to see more of what her dreams and her hopes were, which happens to a lot of us in life. You look up and you’re like, ‘Wait, how, how did I get here?’” she told Us. “That’s where Emily is right now and she gets the opportunity through Mona. It’s really nice to be able to experience that through the characters these questions come up with in my own life and within my own friendship circles.”
A Man on the Inside is currently streaming on Netflix.
