'Stick' cast share what they want next for their characters in Season 2: 'It starts at the top'

Yahoo

3 days ago

Warning: Spoilers for "Stick" Season 1, including the finale
We've reached that bittersweet moment of the Apple TV+ show Stick where we've seen the season finale end on a high note, but that means we don't have a new episode to look forward to next week. Going into the finale with Santi's (Peter Dager) estranged father, Gary (Mackenzie Astin), showing up at his golf tournament, fans were interested to see how that dynamic played out.
While Santi initially decides to switch out Pryce (Owen Wilson) as his caddie for his dad, when the pressure of the tournament is on and Santi makes some mistakes, we see Gary's verbal abuse. It's in that moment Santi realizes that while he hoped his dad would be supportive, things haven't changed from the circumstances of his youth.
But Pryce is there to support Santi in a way Gary never has, as Santi chooses Pryce as his caddie for the final holes.
As Pryce tells Santi it's completely his call how he finishes the game, Zero (Lilli Kay) starts singing Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia," as a way to calm down and support Santi. It's a song Pryce already revealed helps him get through stressful moments, and the whole crowd at the tournament follows Zero's lead and starts singing.
Santi's success comes back to finish the tournament, but it's not enough to win.
The season finale ends with Santi convincing Pryce to play a game of golf with him, telling Pryce to not take it easy on him. As Pryce strikes the ball, resulting in an "oh shit" reaction from Santi, the episode ends.
'I trust them more than any of my particular wishes and desires'
With that finale moment, fans are wondering whether Season 2 could include Pryce's return to competitive golf, with creator Jason Keller telling Deadline that's something he'd "want to explore."
For Lilli Kay, who plays Zero, while a romantic relationship blossomed between them and Santi, Kay wants Zero to be explored with more independence in Season 2.
"My wish list for Zero is for Zero to get to come into their own, with their own passions and their own things, alongside ... getting to support [Santi] and encourage him," Kay told Yahoo Canada. "Knowing the sort of partnership they have, I know that he would show up for them the same way that they show up for him."
But one thing Kay highlighted for Season 1 is the effective way that the show's creative team, Keller and executive producer and writer Christopher Moynihan in particular, crafted Zero, a gender-fluid character, in Stick.
"This was a conversation that I had with Jason before even the chemistry read with Peter, 'I want to make sure that I'm the right person for this, ... that my identity is aligned with this character and what you're trying to do here,'" Kay said. "First of all, Jason just blew me away in that conversation. And second of all, we continued to have conversations every step of the way."
"They were so inviting and welcoming and collaborative about all of it. ... We had a lot of the scripts and we were on the phone going, OK does this beat track? Does this make sense? And being that Zero and I identify the same way, I think that was a really helpful tool, because I was allowed to be in dialogue with everyone. It became just really organic and really easy to do that authentically, because it was just me."
For Peter Dager, while he jokingly identified that he'd love for Santi to "have a six pack" in Season 2, he stressed that he has total confidence in the team behind the show to continue the story in a positive way.
"It starts at the top," Dager said. "You can sort of save some things as an actor and make things happen on the day, but if the structure is good, then everybody who gets added to bring that thing to life, it's probably going to be good, or feel good."
"Jason and Chris in the room, and Apple as a studio fully believing in it, it's felt throughout the whole set. And so if we get to do it again, I completely trust the people at the top to make sure that we've got a good story and everybody's fulfilled, and everybody feels like they've got something to do the next time. ... I trust them more than any of my particular wishes and desires."