‘The Bondsman’ Star Kevin Bacon Unpacks Hub Halloran’s ‘Selfish’ Finale Decision
Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Bondsman”
In the Season 1 finale of “The Bondsman,” Kevin Bacon’s Hub Halloran is tasked with capturing one final demon: Lilith, a fallen angel who has escaped hell and possesses Cheryl, whom he accidentally kills earlier in the season.
In the opening of the finale, Hub reveals to his ex-wife Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles) that he accidentally killed Cheryl while drunk. His insane jealousy of Maryanne’s relationship with Lucky (Damon Herriman) causes him to take matters into his own hands, but Cheryl is ultimately caught in the crosshairs when she decides to don Lucky’s hat.
“He’s taken it like he’s done with a lot of his feelings and a lot of his mistakes and a lot of his insecurities: he’s buried them,” Bacon told TheWrap. “He buries her in the backyard. And we come to find out that she is still haunting him.”
Hub’s final mission is to capture Lilith and send her back to hell, but he ultimately decides to cut a deal with her instead: letting her go in exchange for bringing Cheryl back to life, putting the world in jeopardy in an effort to repair his relationship with his family and delay going to hell himself for the rest of his days.
“He makes a selfish choice at the end of the season in a lot of ways and it’s very in keeping with who he is. He’s a selfish or self-involved kind of guy. Yes, he’s heroic, but it’s that combination of being so stubborn and selfish and flawed that I liked about the character,” Bacon added. “Admitting [killing Cheryl] to his family is a big moment, but he’s still holding onto the idea that he’s not the bad guy here.”
Showrunner Erik Oleson told TheWrap it was important that the reasoning behind sending Hub to hell in the first place was revealed in a shocking way that “recalibrated” the audience’s understanding of the character.
“I really wanted to go to a dark place with it and so did Kevin Bacon,” he said. “I will say that there was initially some pushback from some nervous executives but ultimately I said that it was important and they backed the play. Everybody who’s reading the scripts is always worried about building a barrier to entry to the audience or turn turning off the audience. And ultimately, as we talked it out, they became completely supportive of it.”
Despite bringing Cheryl back, Hub’s deal with Lilith ends up causing more chaos, as its revealed in the finale’s final minutes that she has decided to possess Maryanne, escalating the situation and making things even worse for the undead bounty hunter.
“It was interesting for me to see him in his psychological process, to experiment with redemption and then backslide at the end and double down on ‘No, I’m going to find a loophole out of this. F–ck y’all!’ and be the guy that he totally is,” Oleson explained. “I very much wanted to show the consequences of Hub’s failure to change in the scene and have it boomerang in an unexpected way. I think Hub’s attitude would be like, ‘Wait a minute, you cheated. We had a deal. This wasn’t supposed to be what happened’.”
Both Bacon and Oleson agreed it was important that Hub was not given a one-season redemption arc so that they have more to explore in the event of a potential second season.
“This is a pretty big thing to have to deal with,” Bacon added. “Hub is the only one that knows that his ex-wife, who he is still completely in love with and who sings like an angel and is the mother of my child, is actually possessed by a demon. That’ll be an interesting challenge, to say the least.”
When asked about plans for a potential Season 2, Oleson revealed he has a “laundry list” of “creative, ridiculous, f–ked up” ways for Hub Halloran to kill demons.
“I’ve got so many more fun things that I want to show. I just didn’t have enough time to get to them all. I got away with stabbing a demonic cheerleader underwater in a swimming pool. That was pretty cool. We have a fun demon deputy running up the wall of a hardware store coming at Hub and Maryanne putting a pickaxe in its back,” Oleson said. “I just have so many more gags I want to do. I can’t wait.”
All episodes of “The Bondsman” are streaming now on Prime Video
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