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“South of Nowhere” Season 3 Preview

As with any good TV drama, chaos reigned supreme at the end of the second season of The N’s hit family drama, South of Nowhere. The relationship of young lesbian lovers Spencer Carlin (Gabrielle Christian) and Ashley Davies (Mandy Musgrave) was in question. Ashley struggled with feelings for her ex-boyfriend, Aiden (Matt Cohen), and both Spencer and Ashley battled with mothers who disapproved of their lesbianism and their love affair.

Spencer’s brothers, Glen and Clay, struggled with drug addiction and a pregnant girlfriend, respectively, and a drive-by shooting at the prom in the season finale left the fate of many of the South of Nowhere regulars in question.

Fan forums are rampant with speculation about what will unfold in the third season, which premieres Friday, Aug. 10, at 8 p.m. ET on The N. Although stars Gabrielle Christian, Mandy Musgrave and Maeve Quinlan (Paula Carlin, Spencer’s mother) weren’t able to divulge much when they recently spoke to AfterEllen.com, they did drop a few hints about what we can expect to see. Spashley: To Be or Not To Be?

The main concern of most South of Nowhere fans is, of course, whether Spencer and Ashley will still be together in Season 3. Their tempestuous romance appeared to take a nosedive in the Season 2 finale when Aiden declared his lingering feelings for Ashley. Rather than reject his advances outright, Ashley seemed surprised and, yes, even interested in her ex. So will Ashley rekindle her affair with Aiden, or will she stay with Spencer?

Mandy Musgrave told AfterEllen.com: “No matter what, you can’t lose the relationship between Spencer and Ashley. We have something happen over the summer that affects them, and when they come back there’s a whole different turn of events that go on with them. Ashley decides who she’s going to be with, and it doesn’t completely work out in her favor. She doesn’t know where to go, she starts making a lot of bad decisions, and Spencer gets to witness every single one of them.

“When you love someone, you can rekindle your friendship as long as you have that thing. You can stay friends even if you can’t be lovers. And Spencer and Ashley will have that even if they’re not together. But I feel like Spencer and Ashley are true loves. They are meant to be together.”

Gabrielle Christian added: “I think like most high school relationships, even though Ashley and Spencer usually end up coming back to each other, there are periods where Ashley makes a wrong decision and Spencer makes a wrong decision and we take our little breaks.

“Over the summer break some things happen between Spencer and Ashley, and it kind of gives Spencer a different outlook on life and teaches her more independence, how to be strong and not so repressed all the time, and how to make decisions for herself instead of always just trying to get Ashley back and trying to impress her.

“She definitely becomes a lot more confident and more determined to figure out where she’s going with her future and figure out what she’s going to do with her life, because she’s going into her senior year and graduating. And with that goes learning the independence of what she’s going to do – with or without a relationship. And it’s what every high school senior goes through, which I really like because it’s a totally different route for Spencer. Now she’s in Los Angeles and she’s more comfortable with herself, and she’s better able to make decisions in her own world.”

So if Spencer and Ashley do end up taking a “break” from one another, does this mean that each will have new love interests? The promotional ads for Season 3 indicate that this is indeed the case.

In fact, fans are already speculating about Spencer’s romance with a new character, Carmen (aka “Bangs”), played by Brooke Vallone.

Asked about the potential relationship between Carmen and Spencer (already dubbed “Spangs” by the great minds that brought us “Spashley”), Christian said: “There is this new character that shows up and brings a lot of drama along with her. And the actress who plays her, Brooke Vallone, is really great.

“The Carmen character comes from the wrong side of the tracks, and she’s got a lot of issues behind her with her life and her family. She’s gay, and Spencer meets her and there’s a bit of a love story there, but it kind of comes and goes. And by the end of the season, you find out some other things about her that are interesting and make you understand why she is how she is.

“But for Spencer, it’s kind of interesting because this is the first person she’s really been with, relationship-wise, besides Ashley. And you see the way her family deals with the Carmen character, and the acceptance they have of her as opposed to Ashley. It’s kind of contradictory, actually. There are some choices that the writers have made that show the family in a different light, and the way Spencer handles being with women now – because before it was mainly just Ashley. But now she’s a gay woman and she’s experiencing other women, so you kind of get to see that part of her.”

Season 3: A Gay PDA-Free Zone?

In South of Nowhere‘s first season, Spencer, the teenager formerly known as heterosexual, met and fell for the free-spirited rebel, Ashley — a process painstakingly stretched out until the two finally kissed in that season’s last episode. The premiere of the second season essentially took place the morning after the two had consummated their affair.

But what started off with a (ahem) bang fizzled into a practically platonic relationship, with the girls being lovers almost in name only, with few public displays of affection that would actually even register as “gay” to an uninitiated viewer.

Many Spashley fans were upset by the lack of on-screen physical intimacy between the characters and were quick to express their discontent in online fan forums. There was even speculation that the events of Season 2 were harbingers of a further “de-gaying” of the show in Season 3.

When we asked the show’s stars about the possibility of a “straightened up” South of Nowhere, they were quick — and pleased — to say that this would not be the case.

Christian told AfterEllen.com: “I think with Season 2 the fans may have been a little disappointed with the fact that although we were in this relationship the physical intimacy wasn’t really there, and I know that they had requested more of that. I know Season 3 definitely takes care of that aspect.” She laughed and continued, “I know the fans wanted to see more, and this upcoming season we give them more.”

Quinlan concurred. “There was a fear that it [a decrease in physical affection between Spencer and Ashley] would happen in the absence of our showrunner for the first two seasons,” Quinlan said, referring to out writer-producer Nancylee Myatt, who did not return for a third season.

“She fought for more [physical affection] but The N is a teen network, and there were restrictions,” Quinlan explained. “The irony is that now we will see more. And I wish Nancylee Myatt was around to see it, because she fought for it.”

Quinlan also said that fan outcry around the lack of physical affection did make a difference in terms of the content of Season 3. “I really feel like there was an impact from the viewers wanting it more; I think the network had to listen to it. And they did listen to it. So no, the show is absolutely not de-gayed. If anything, you’ll see more.”

Running in tandem with displays of physical affection between the gay characters on the show is the issue of sexual identity. Spencer’s coming-out process and Ashley’s lack of a definitive sexual identity have been pivotal to the development of their characters and their romance. When asked about how their characters’ sexual orientations continue to evolve in Season 3, Christian and Musgrave made very different observations.

Musgrave noted: “I think that Ashley has always [been] known for being unpredictable. One of her famous lines is, ‘I’m not into labels.’ She doesn’t have one — so she’s not gay, she’s not straight. But whoever she sees love in, she falls for that person. She’s not going for a physical package; she’s going for the inner characteristics. I think that’s important, and I wish that more humans could be like that. I think that she’s not worried about finding her sexual identity; it’s found. And she is the ‘no label girl.'”

Musgrave added that she felt that the character of Spencer did find her sexual identity in Season 3. Christian agreed.

“Definitely,” Christian said. “She does find out that it’s women that she wants to be with, but she doesn’t know for sure who that person is — it kind of comes and goes throughout the next season — but she does have a few experiences with other women.

“Besides just ‘Spangs,'” Christian said, laughing at the term, “there’s another person, and now it’s to the point where you see her, and she’s in high school — even if she’s in the background of another character’s scene, she’s flirting with a girl in the background. She’s not going back and forth with boys; there’s no confusion now.”

Christian continued: “Aiden is out of the picture. It’s to the point where even if she’s not in a relationship, the people she flirts with and the people she’s checking out are women. And it’s interesting because she has a type, too! You can tell the girl who plays Carmen is very similar to Ashley in the way she dresses; she’s brunette and a little more on the rougher side. And another girl, it’s to the point where the other girls — the extras — you see her with kind of have that Ashley thing about them. I think it’s interesting because it’s her new type. Or I guess it’s her only type.”

Drama: It’s All in the Family

Ultimately, South of Nowhere is a family drama, and battles over sex, sexuality and religion raged in the Carlin household in Season 2. The driving force behind those battles was Spencer’s conservative Catholic mother, Paula, who physically threw Ashley out of the Carlin home when she found her in bed with Spencer, and later hired a conservative “deprogrammer” to try to convert Spencer back to heterosexuality.

As her efforts to both heterosexualize her daughter and keep her away from Ashley inevitably failed, Paula had to face the reality of her familial situation. She appeared to be making some progress in that direction by the season finale.

When asked about what Season 3 holds for Paula, Quinlan said: “Let’s just say that in Season 3, Paula’s life is forever changed. Last year, she found the girls together, and she tolerated Ashley because she didn’t want to lose Spencer. I think there was a lot of hope at the end of the last season, and you could see how Paula was trying here and there. I don’t know if it was genuine, though, perhaps it was just about keeping her daughter. But Paula’s going to be hit with some humbling situations this year — very difficult. It’s been a wonderful arc to play, and I hope that the audience likes the payoff. I can’t say much more than that, but things start out pretty tough for her in Season 3.”

The appearance of a new character, Paula’s mother, may evoke sympathy from fans that had previously seen Paula exclusively as a homophobic villain. Quinlan told us, “Paula’s mom comes to town in Episode 10, and she’s played by Oscar-nominated actress Patty McCormack.”

Film fans may remember McCormack as the title character in the 1956 cult horror film The Bad Seed, about a murderous teen. More recently, McCormack has appeared on HBO’s The Sopranos. The addition of her character will shed more light on the origins of Paula’s personality and value system.

When asked if the apple falls far from the tree in terms of Paula’s similarity to her mother, Quinlan laughed. “What do you think?” she asked. “Do you think Paula Carlin was brought up by a hippie? I don’t think so!”

Similarly, Ashley’s relationships with her mother and stepsister, Kyla, face new challenges in the upcoming season, exacerbated by the death of Ashley and Kyla’s rock-star father in Season 2 and their subsequent inheritance of his fortune.

Musgrave told AfterEllen.com: “Ashley inherits the money, and she’s able to spend it however she wants. She and Kyla get closer, but then every 20 seconds Ashley is turning around and getting mad at Kyla again. Ashley doesn’t know how to handle the inheritance, and she wants to drop her mom because she’s not the greatest parent in the world. So Ashley doesn’t actually have any moral support or parenting at all. And she thinks she can do it on her own, which most teenagers do. So she turns to someone that everyone would least expect for help.”

In Season 3, the relationship between Ashley and her former detractor, Paula, takes an unusual turn. Musgrave explained: “They start having a little bit more of a bond and communicating with each other and having a little bit more of an understanding for one another.

“I love working with Maeve, and I think it’s great seeing Paula and Ashley together because even though the fans may not like Paula, she’s a pivotal part of the story. There’s always going to be that one person, especially a parent, who can’t understand their children and the choices that they’re making, and a lot of parents say that they just want their kids to be healthy. But they’re just as healthy if they’re gay, straight, bi, whatever. But a lot of parents can’t handle that, so I think it’s important to portray that and see how Paula’s able to come around a little bit.”

All three of the stars agreed that the stakes continue to be raised for the characters in South of Nowhere‘s third season, and they hope that fans will be pleased by the new developments.

“I don’t think that what’s going to happen is anything like what people expect,” Quinlan concluded. “And the journeys of all of these different characters are going to take a lot of twists and turns still in Season 3, and there’s a lot to be seen. It’s a great ride.”

Season 3 of South of Nowhere premieres Friday, Aug. 10, at 8 p.m. ET on The N. Read commentary and recaps for Seasons 1 and 2 of South of Nowhere here.

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