Prime Video’s 56 Days threw in a surprise twist — and some book changes — that shifted the trajectory of the show.
Based on Catherine Ryan Howard‘s novel of the same name, 56 Days follows couple Oliver (Avan Jogia) and Ciara (Dove Cameron) as they start an intense relationship after meeting in a supermarket. Their romance is questioned after an unidentifiable body is found in a bathtub.
In addition to Jogia and Cameron, Megan Peta Hill, Dorian Missick, Karla Souza, Patch Darragh, Kira Guloien and Celeste Oliva make up the cast. Jesse James Keitel, Matt Murray, David Klein and Alec Albert also appear in the show.
The biggest twist on the show was the reveal that both Ciara and Oliver weren’t honest about their lives. Oliver previously went under a name but changed it after he killed a boy — and someone else took the fall. The man who was arrested for the crime was none other than Ciara’s brother.
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Oliver assumed he set up a meet cute — except it was Ciara manipulating the situation. Her plan to get revenge took a turn when she developed feelings for Oliver. Ultimately they are able to overcome the lies and end up together — with a child.
As for the body in the bathtub? That was Oliver’s therapist Dan (Darragh), who convinced Ciara’s brother to take his own life in prison and blackmailed Oliver.
56 Days featured several book changes with the location being swapped to Boston over Dublin. There is also a COVID component that wasn’t included in the Prime Video series.
“Every single thread of the story pays off,” creators Lisa Zwerling and Karyn Usher told People in February about getting the author to sign off on the shifts. “Her book gave us such a sexy, emotional thrill-ride of a show. It was hugely important to us that she was happy.”
Jogia and Cameron broke down their favorite parts of bringing the show to life.
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“Ciara could be this kind of manic pixie dream girl that’s gone off the rails if it was in someone else’s hands, who didn’t really see her as a sort of a — I hate this,” Cameron told The Wrap in February. “Yes, a person.”
She continued: “I was gonna say complex, and I hate it when people use that word to define female characters. But, you know, she’s a wholly formed person.”
Cameron elaborated on her developing her character, adding, “There’s some gaps in her personality that she has sort of filled in with things that I think she needed to survive, that she ascertained and gathered from the world on her own, when she was sort of neglected as a glass child, because everything was going wrong in the family, but a true, fully formed person, and not for his consumption, right? Which is what the role so easily could have been.”
56 Days is streaming on Prime Video.
