Ready your murder boards, streamer sleuths. Peacock’s “Based on a True Story” strikes again Nov. 21 and USA TODAY has your first look at the eight-episode season.
The first installment of the dark comedy, released in June 2023, ended with a cliffhanger: Real-estate agent Ava (Kaley Cuoco) and tennis pro Nathan (Chris Messina) were expecting a baby and struggling financially. They attempted to cash in on a true-crime podcast done in collaboration with their plumber Matt (Tom Bateman), who happened to be a serial killer known as the Westside Ripper. They even buried the body of their friend Rudy (Priscilla Quintana) beneath a pickleball court. While Ava and Nathan were cleaning up, Ruby’s husband Simon (Aaron Staton) walked in and asked, “Whose blood is that?”
As the new season begins, “A lot of questions are definitely answered quickly, which is nice,” Cuoco says in an interview. “Then they're on to a whole ‘nother thing.”
Season 2 picks up three months after Ava has given birth to the couple’s first child. And while baby Jack is quite adorable – and even helps Ava make mommy friend Drew (Melissa Fumero) – the arrival changes Ava and Nathan’s dynamic, Messina says.
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“Because of everything that went down in the first season and now (there’s) a newborn added to the equation, they're just not on the same page,” Messina says. He and Cuoco are “kind of like brother and sister,” he adds. “We are in a rhythm, and we are in sync. I think maybe that was the hardest thing, to be out of sync with her.”
Matt, still dating Ava’s younger sister Tory (Liana Liberato), has entered rehab to shake his murderous bad habit. But “underneath it is always the threat of, ‘Is he just taking them for a ride? Has anything changed?’” says showrunner Annie Weisman.
But a new killer emerges, who emulates others’ crimes. “It is someone who is clearly not just a killer, but someone who's very much plugged into the world of meta serial-killer obsession … they're an expert on killers,” Weisman explains. “It's this idea that maybe all this obsession around killers isn't so harmless after all.”
Don’t tell Ava, who's a true-crime addict, just like Cuoco.
“I went to a dark side when I was in Philadelphia,” she says, with her fiancé, Tom Pelphrey, who filmed an upcoming HBO drama. “I wasn't working, and I was just hanging out, literally being a mom" to the couple’s daughter Matilda, who turned 1 in March.
"I started watching Court TV 24/7. I literally think I lost my mind. That's why I understand Ava,” Cuoco says. “I’d be making coffee or making dinner with my earbuds in, staring, listening to every second of these court trials and literally thinking I was part of these trials, thinking I was an attorney and talking about them and texting my other friends who love it like I do.”
Ava's motherhood provided “The Big Bang Theory” alum with a career first: acting with a baby.
“You're trying to act natural. But it's not your baby, so you're trying to be very careful,” Cuoco explains. “It was a really wild experience! Also, they do what they want. They're maybe talking, or maybe they're upset about something (and) you're trying to be in the moment. That was very new for me.”
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Ava’s desire to be the best mom gave Cuoco the opportunity to deliver a love note to mothers. “I love this idea of trying to be this perfect mom," she says she told Weisman, but "I want the message out there for this character and for myself to (be) ‘There is no such thing. Do whatever the hell you want! Survive!’”
“The first few episodes, we looked a lot at that, where she was so worried about what people thought, worried about her baby 24/7 … “I thought that was important because I hate that … I'm used to being criticized in general, for my entire life, and then you have a kid, and everyone has 8,000 things to say and you're just like, ‘What?’ It is so shocking how bold people become about your life.”
As Cuoco sees it, “If your kid is smiling and happy and fed and living life, you are winning.”
