Cobie Smulders and Vella Lovell‘s episode of Accused is unlike most of the ones that came before it.
During the Tuesday, November 26, episode of the hit FOX series, no one involved in the case received any jail time. Instead, Smulders’ character Val is able to one-up the system by threatening to implicate herself in a crime she was already found not guilty of. This allowed both Val and Jordan (Dina Shihabi) to walk free after their mutually abusive ex died.
“We made so many changes to this script and [the creative team] were so open to it,” Smulders, 42, exclusively told Us Weekly about the ending. “It was always about this relationship between these two women who loved the same child [and] who both wanted to be mothers to this child. So I think that that arc was always there.”
Smulders noted that the bond between Val and Jordan was there from the “beginning,” adding, “But I think with every step — and with every scene — we wanted to be as sensitive to the nature of the content of this scene. [We wanted] to portray someone who’s going through an abusive situation with integrity and respect. So it was really about playing with the levels and making it seem as realistic of the portrayal as we could. It was really just small adjustments but the arc of it pretty much stayed the same.”
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The crime drama, which debuted in 2023, is based on Jimmy McGovern‘s 2010 British series of the same name. Each episode of Accused introduces the accused — who is always just an ordinary person — without knowing their crime or how they ended up on trial. The audience is then told the events that lead them there from the defendant’s point of view.
Lovell, 39, was happy to see Accused go for a happier ending this time around.
“It was all kind of hopeful, with some slight changes,” she added. “At the end. Val has figured out this way to make the justice system work for her, which is so often [not the case]. So it’s a satisfying ending.”
While Val’s legal loophole came as a surprise, Lovell actually consulted with a friend about the process.
“I ran it by a lawyer friend and they were like, ‘That is technically true.’ That would be crazy if that happens [though]. Basically what happens is they basically call the prosecutor’s bluff. We’re basically saying, ‘Do you really want to go through another trial?’ I can believe that in terms of the interpersonal [legal aspects],” the actress recalled. “It’s really a cool and fun device because the same system that completely screwed over Val and made her only have partial custody of her son is actually the same system that is so complicated and convoluted that the prosecutor doesn’t want to get into it again.”
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She continued: “So it’s a really satisfying and hopeful way that she’s able to turn that same system on its head and have it work for her and work for Jordan as well. The law is sometimes the law and then there’s right and what would be humane is something different. So I think this episode kind of toggles back and forth between those two.”
Smulders, meanwhile, called it an appeal to “humanity.”
“It’s about, ‘What is the right thing to do here? What is the right move?’ I think that in these cases you can get so caught up in the law,” she explained. “And a lot of these cases are defined by public opinion anyway by a jury. So it’s like we’re appealing to the humanity of this one person and hoping it will have the outcome that we want.”
New episodes of Accused premiere on Fox every Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.
