Of all the feedback she’s received on All Her Fault, there is one comment that sticks with creator and showrunner Megan Gallagher: “Those are two of the worst husbands I’ve ever seen on television, and neither one of them were having an affair.”
It certainly would’ve been easy (and predictable) to fuel audiences’ distaste for the spouses of Marissa Irvine (Sarah Snook) and Jenny Kaminski (Dakota Fanning), the two women at the center of the thriller who are brought together by the disappearance of the former’s son, by adding an extramarital relationship to the mix — particularly for Jenny’s husband, Richie (Thomas Cocquerel), whose sins amount to far less than Peter’s (Jake Lacy).
But, it also would’ve undercut the themes Gallagher wanted to drive home with the limited series, which explores the ways that women and mothers often shoulder the brunt of societal responsibility and therefore get the lion’s share of the blame as well.
“I don’t think that that’s the worst thing that you can do to your spouse, necessarily. I really don’t,” Gallagher said during an All Her Fault x Women in Entertainment FYC screening at The London in West Hollywood on Sunday. “The truth is, if you are Jenny Kaminsky, and you are miserable every day and asking for help every day, and the person who’s supposed to love you and be your life partner is doing everything within their power to keep you miserable, that’s so much worse, I think, than having an affair. Like, I’d rather have you sleep with your secretary than do that. It meant something to be able to get that on the screen, that look at marriage.”
It also gave Gallagher an opportunity to dig into the complexities of a woman like Jenny, someone she says “might seem like [a] pushover” but is far from it.
“She’s a people pleaser by nature. She’s very clearly depicted that way, as somebody whose strength is in being empathic and being intuitive and kind of sensing what other people need,” she explained. “And I feel like I know so many people like that, men and women both, but I think that those people often have a very steely core down there.”
Gallagher describes the scene where Jenny finally puts her foot down with Richie as the character finally “finding that moment of no.”
Jenny’s realization is fueled not only by her husband’s actions throughout the series but also by the revelations about Marissa’s missing son and the part her own husband Peter played in his disappearance. At every turn, Marissa blames herself for Milo’s disappearance, as do others, and Peter lets her bear that undue weight for most of the series without explaining his part in any of it.
Ultimately, Marissa is a devoted mom who had nothing to do with her son’s disappearance and who was fooled by her own husband. Just like with Jenny, Gallagher says she wanted to challenge expectations for the kind of woman Marissa would be.
“I purposefully wrote Marissa as an incredibly accomplished career woman who wasn’t necessarily a lovey-dovey mom,” she said. “She’s got a real edge to her, in a good way, in a way that I find relatable. I’m not a wilting flower. She’s a really strong lady.”
Marissa’s devotion to both her son and her own sense of self was an important component to get on screen, Gallagher said, adding: “It’s one thing when society blames you or the media blames you and all that kind of stuff. It’s another thing when women internalize this guilt and we take it on ourselves. To me, that’s the most heartbreaking part.”
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