Four
Molly Sullivan was pretending to find what some guy had said hilarious. She hated herself for it.
But she couldn’t let Ashley know how much she’d shaken her up with her surprise appearance. Ashley was the definition of a homebody. She didn’t go anywhere she didn’t have to. She stayed at home and read. Or played. Or composed. Or went down on you for an hour without coming up for breath.
Not that Molly thought much about that last part—if she was careful.
Or that Reva creature who had been splashed everywhere of late.
Though she’d turned out to be a trainwreck, it transpired.
Molly didn’t care either way about that.
She only googled it seven times. The very definition of causal interest.
‘Hey, I think I’m gonna go home,’ Molly said.
‘Oh, great,’ the guy said.
‘Solo,’ she added.
His face dropped. ‘Oh. OK. Well, maybe I could get your number?’
‘You can find me on Insta,’ she said, already leaving.
She wasn’t giving that guy her number. She was going home to process. Or watch TV and eat a sliced apple with finely spread peanut butter on it. That was as close as she could get to pigging out. She was working tomorrow. Bloat wouldn’t do.
‘Jade, I’m leaving,’ she called to her friend.
She didn’t hear her. She was snogging someone with a passion that was entirely inappropriate for a public function. Molly shook her head and left.
***
‘Cut!’ yelled Valeria.
Molly was grateful for a moment's respite. This episode’s script was poor. Which, given that it was the season finale, was indefensible.
‘Hey, that was great, everyone,’ Valeria lied. ‘Maybe we can try one with a little more energy.’
Tell that to the writers, Molly thought but would never say. She knew her place.
Molly headed back to her mark while the crew reset the scene.
A lighting technician adjusted a practical lamp behind reception.
Someone from props hurried over to replace a stack of brochures that had been knocked sideways during the last take.
Around her, the familiar machinery of television continued without pause.
The sitcom itself wasn’t a dreadful idea.
Three siblings inheriting a struggling hotel on the Yorkshire coast had been a solid enough premise when the show began.
The first few series of Off Season had even been funny.
The problem was that success had stretched the concept far beyond its natural lifespan.
Every conflict now felt recycled from one that had come before it.
The details changed, but the shape remained the same.
Today’s plot centred on a double booking. Trevor’s character had accidentally promised the ballroom to both a wedding party and a funeral reception. So lazy.
When Valeria called action, Molly pushed through the reception doors with as much purpose as she could muster. ‘Please tell me you’ve got good news.’
Trevor looked up from behind the desk with the expression of a man who knew he was about to spend three pages explaining the week’s misunderstanding.
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Whether the deceased are willing to share.’
The audience laughed politely.
Molly felt a flicker of irritation. Not at Trevor, who was doing his best, but at the line itself. It was exactly the sort of joke the show had begun relying on: harmless, predictable, and engineered to produce a reliable response rather than a memorable one.
As Trevor launched into the explanation, Molly found herself drifting into the detached state that arrived, more and more, during bad material.
One part of her performed the scene. Another stood outside it, observing the mechanics.
Setup. Punchline. Reaction. Escalation. Every beat arrived precisely when expected.
By the time Valeria finally called cut, Molly wanted to cry with gratitude.
The audience filed out while she got a coffee. She was stirring milk into it when she noticed a peculiar atmosphere in the studio. Clusters of people were standing together, muttering. More phones were out than usual.
At first, she assumed some celebrity had died. Then she spotted Trevor crossing the floor with his phone in his hand and a strange expression on his face.
‘You seen this?’ he asked.
‘Seen what?’
He stopped beside her and held up the screen. Molly read the headline twice before it registered. ‘Off Season Cancelled’.
She looked up. ‘That’s official?’
Trevor nodded. ‘Nice way to break it to us.’
For a moment, Molly felt absolutely nothing.
The show wasn’t what it had once been. She knew that. Everybody knew that. Ratings had slipped. The reviews had become increasingly charitable in the way they do when something once loved is dying. Molly had spent most of the year complaining about the scripts.
And yet.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said quietly.
Trevor gave a small shrug. ‘Yeah.’
Around them, the news was spreading in waves. Someone from makeup sat down heavily in a chair. One of the younger runners looked close to tears.
That was the thing people rarely talked about. A cancelled show wasn’t just cancelled for the cast. It disappeared for everyone. Dozens of people. Hundreds over the course of a year.
Molly thought about the production manager who always arrived before dawn. The runner who knew every cast member’s coffee order. The costume supervisor who had been there since the pilot. An entire little ecosystem. Gone.
‘You all right?’ Trevor asked.
She considered the question.
The truthful answer surprised her. ‘Not really.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah.’
The hotel reception set stood across the studio under the lights. Fake walls. Fake keys. Fake seaside postcards. Molly had spent years rolling her eyes at it.
Now she found herself staring at it nostalgically. A few weeks from now, it would probably be in storage.
She thought she would feel relieved. Instead, there was real grief.
Valeria appeared beside them, carrying a clipboard.
‘Well,’ she said, attempting a smile, ‘nothing lasts forever.’
Molly smiled politely. She had no witty comeback.
She took one last sip of her coffee and looked back at the set. It was still the same tired sitcom. But suddenly she wanted one more season. Not because it was good. Because it was all she had.
She thought, briefly, oddly, of calling Ashley to commiserate. But of course, she wasn’t going to do that. It was just because she’d seen her last night. It was just a weird impulse.