[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Company You Keep Season 1 finale “The Truth Hurts.”]
Well, at least The Company You Keep didn’t end its first season — which could be its only, given it hasn’t been renewed and so much up in the air due to the writers strike — on a major cliffhanger. In fact, it does a pretty good job of setting up what a second season could look like while also giving us an idea of what could be next for these characters in such a way that we’re not left with too many questions about what the future holds.
Emma (Catherine Haena Kim) and Charlie’s (Milo Ventimiglia) plan to take down Patrick Maguire (Timothy V. Murphy) for good not only works, but Leo (William Fichtner) and Fran (Polly Draper) are also able to use that takedown to put an end to Frankie’s (Tony Shalhoub) for the neighborhood after he’d tried so hard to get them to sell the bar.
On a personal front, however, things aren’t so clear between Emma and Charlie. While at first, she has an idea where they can keep “working together, being together, and we can figure out who’s pulling the strings, what they’re hiding, clean up the rot in the CIA” and “formalize you with the agency,” he refuses.
“I can’t,” he explains. “You’re asking me to be someone that I’m not. The people my family target, they don’t fight fair, so neither can I. That’s where you and I are different.” She knows, but “I love you.” And while he loves her, too, “that’s not gonna be enough. We’re on opposite sides of the line. There’s no world where you can be who you are and I can be who I am and we can be together.” She liked it better when he was a yoga instructor and she was a rocket scientist, she admits, recalling their first conversation in the bar.
But fortunately (especially since this might be a one-season show), that’s not it for them. They end the episode in the bar again, this time working their own angles. He has an eye on a mark — as Birdie (Sarah Wayne Callies) suggests, they’ve set their sights higher and are out to “level the playing field” for everyone — and she’s left her job at the CIA to form her own covert unit, “spying on the spies,” off the books. He passes her intel she needs, they flirt, and it’s clear that this won’t be the last time they (intentionally) cross paths and their personal relationship isn’t over.
And so we’re left with a finale that closes one door — neither Charlie nor Emma will ever be doing what they were in Season 1 and prior again — and opens another. It’s easy to imagine a second season where the two continue to cross paths while working to take down those on their respective lists, their relationship perhaps undefined, and more often than not teaming up. Birdie’s daughter could become more and more involved in the family business after being brought in near the end of Season 1. Perhaps Fran and Leo eventually take a step back, as they’d planned to. Emma could have to work with others in Charlie’s world to get what she needs to done. And eventually, we do see things working out in the long run for Charlie and Emma.
But what do you think? Do you want to see a second season of the ABC drama? Let us know in the poll below.
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
