The first season of Unstable ended about as unstably as possible: Ellis Dragon (Rob Lowe) vengefully set fire to his friend-turned-rival Jean’s (Christina Chang) car. Season 2 wastes no time diving into the consequences of that scorching decision — or more specifically, Ellis getting ready to deal with those consequences in the most Ellis way possible.
In the first four minutes of Unstable’s new season, which you can watch above, we find the eccentric tech billionaire role-playing prison life in his basement with his therapist, Leslie (Fred Armisen). Of course, Ellis’s son Jackson (John Owen Lowe) astutely points out just how ridiculous it is.
“I’ve always wanted to do a gritty, hard-hitting Midnight Express-type prison drama, and this is as close as I think I’ll ever get to come as an actor,” Rob Lowe tells Tudum with a laugh. “But to prepare for it — like my heroes like Daniel Day-Lewis — I stayed in that prison set for at least 10 or 15 minutes before we shot it.”
“It’s true. His commitment was unparalleled,” John Owen Lowe jokes. “Prison Ellis was one of my favorite iterations of Ellis.”
But alas, Prison Ellis is short-lived because, as the clip reveals, Ellis’s business partner Anna (Sian Clifford) pulls some strings and helps him avoid jail time. But that doesn’t mean their company is out of the woods. Both Anna and the board believe Dragon needs a new face. Could Jackson step into that role? Would he even want to, given how much he longs for his independence?
“What’s so funny about that journey … is that quest to pull away and how there’s this innate gravitational pull back in,” says John Owen. “We really exaggerate it with Jackson and Ellis, because there’s this one shining moment where it seems like we’re going to see Jackson in his true form, having some space. And then what’s so fun about Season 2 is we just maxed out how hard Ellis could suck him back into his world in the cruelest ways possible.”
The opening few minutes of Season 2 also tease the arrival of Iris Apatow as Anna’s stepdaughter Georgia, who becomes an intern at Dragon. Introducing Georgia allowed the writers to accomplish one of their goals coming into the new season.
“There was a desire to see Anna humanized a bit more, to see her backstory put simply, and get more of a glimpse into what her life is outside of Ellis — which, there isn’t much life outside of Ellis for her,” says John Owen.
Apatow isn’t the only new addition this season. You can also expect to see Fargo’s Lamorne Morris as another biotech creator who stokes the rivalry between Ellis and Jackson.
Make sure you watch Unstable Season 2 when it premieres Aug. 1.
Additional reporting by Christopher Hudspeth.