Warning: Spoilers for the Sharp Objects finale below

For those who hadn’t read Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects novel (or maybe even for those who have!), the final moments of HBO’s adaptation were absolutely bone-chilling. Teeth-rattling, even, as Camille (Amy Adams) realizes that the meticulously constructed flooring in her sister Amma’s (Eliza Scanlen) dollhouse is made of the missing teeth of the murder victims. As Amma sheepishly sees what Camille has discovered, she says, “Don’t tell Momma.”

Show runner Marti Noxon and director Jean-Marc Vallée spoke with TV Guide about the choice to end things there, instead of going as far as Flynn’s book did (where Camille turns Amma in and then visits her in prison, learning about why she murdered Natalie and Ann). "That was a place where just visually we didn't see the whole scenario," Noxon said, in reference to the short season. "We don't win 'em all." But she added “that's something you have to wrestle with after the show is over, is what's going to happen to those women now?”

sharp-objects-finale-amma-eliza-scanlen
Image via HBO

But Amma was also not the only woman responsible for murder in Sharp Objects, and no, I’m not talking about Adora (but what a stellar performance by Patricia Clarkson). As Adam Chitwood explains in his piece on the mid-credits scene, it’s clear that Amma had help in the murders of Natalie and Ann: her pre-teen friends. So is there a chance that Sharp Objects could explore that or more of the darkness in Wind Gap in a second season?

"We have certainly talked about it," Noxon said, although the entire creative team has been adamant from the start that this is a true limited series, and there would not be a surprise renewal like Big Little Lies. "To me, the idea of sort of a second novel from Gillian Flynn shown on the screen would be exciting, but I think just because of the team that we were able to assemble, it's going to be pretty impossible to do it again. Those ideas have certainly been kicked around, but right now they feel like pipe dreams."

The interview is really chock-full of more insights about the finale and Camille’s relationship with her mother and with Amma, as well as Miguel reading out Camille’s article, where we hear her words for the first time: “Her internal monologue is so strong and beautiful ... in the book,” Vallée says. "There's such a beautiful humanity to this speech, to this paper that she wrote […] And we feel there's some hope." But the duo also answered one question that has been on fans’ minds since the start — what’s up with the rollerskating?

"It was something that Jean-Marc brought to the project and honestly, I didn't understand it either until I saw it in the show," Noxon said. "But we have this whole sort of quality of ghost-like apparitions and things appearing out of the blue in Camille's mind, and somehow it gave those girls a very ghostly ominous presence because they could move so quickly from place to place. It ended up being really, visually, a really beautiful choice. But in terms of the technical reality of why she loves roller skating, I'm sure she saw it in a music video."

Speaking of music, be sure to also read Emma Fraser’s piece on how the music in Sharp Objects creates a dialogue with the dead.

sharp-objects-adora-patricia-clarkson
Image via HBO
sharp-objects-amy-adams
Image via HBO
sharp-objects-eliza-scanlen-04
Image via HBO