‘Duster’ Co-Creator on [SPOILER]’s Death in the Finale, Why J.J. Abrams Calls the Show’s Watergate Tapes One of His ‘Favorite MacGuffins Ever’

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “66 Reno Split,” the Season 1 finale of “Duster,” now streaming on Max.

Season 1 of Max’s 70s crime drama “Duster” ended the only way it could –– with bullets and blood.

In the opening moments of the eighth episode, Nina (Rachel Hilson) awakens chained to rusty pipes in a dingy warehouse after her cover as Russian interpreter is blown. Pretty soon, her informant, Jim (Josh Holloway), is chained right beside her, both staring down the fate they have tempted all season.

Crime syndicate boss Saxton (Keith David) now knows she’s an FBI agent, and when he confronts her, he learns she’s also the daughter of one of his former associates whom he had killed after he turned on him. But Nina’s lifelong quest for revenge isn’t satiated by their long-awaited faceoff. As Saxton explains, her father broke a code and he wasn’t the innocent man her teenage memory paints him to be.

“Saxton almost, in a sense, feels justified in what he did, because there is a different code that he lives by,” co-creator and writer LaToya Morgan tells Variety. “It throws a wrench in what Nina has always felt and it plants just a little bit of a seed of doubt in her.”

But their tête-à-tête is short-lived, because Saxton has a crisis on his hands. He has an FBI agent he can’t simply free, and Jim has built a failsafe into his attempt to save Nina. His father and Saxton’s oldest friend, Wade (Corbin Bernsen), is posted up at the bar owned by Saxton’s daughter Genesis (Sydney Elisabeth) and if Jim doesn’t come home, neither does Genesis. 

Adding to Saxton’s stress, the briefcase he acquired in Episode 6, which he delivered to a manic Howard Hughes (yes, that Howard Hughes, Tom Nelis), has gone missing, and with it so have the contents –– aka the Watergate tapes (yes, those Watergate tapes). They’ve been intercepted by Sal (Jack Topalian), the Greek gangster who Jim made an enemy of a few episodes back when he crashed his daughter’s wedding and helped the bride escape with her girlfriend, Genesis.

To solve his problems, Saxton plans to drive Nina out to the desert and have her killed, a job given to her corrupt colleague, Agent Grant (Dan Tracy). At the same time, he will hand Jim over to Sal in exchange for the tapes, despite knowing it could result in Genesis’ death. Saxton seems at peace with these consequences (or at least in denial) when he delivers Jim, only to reconsider and shoot Sal in the head seconds later.

Meanwhile, Nina fights for her life in the middle of nowhere against Grant, who has wanted her gone since day thanks to misogyny, racism, jealousy –– honestly, take your pick. Thankfully, her partner Awan Bitsui (Asivak Koostachin) followed Grant on a hunch, and put a bullet in his chest before he could finish the job. Don’t expect the FBI to release a press release explaining that whole situation.

Nina gets free just in time, only to find Saxton and Jim battling a ballet of bullets with Sal’s men — a firefight that gets Saxton’s blunt-force henchman Billy (Evan Jones) shot through the eye. Even though she has plenty of opportunity to repay the favor of her father in this gunfight, Nina saves Saxton. But he ends up taking a bullet to protect his son Royce (Benjamin Charles Watson) and dies anyway –– which hits her harder than expected.

“I think it’s complicated for her, which is why I wrote it in that she’s crying when he dies,” Morgan says. “There’s tears coming out of her eyes, because all of her life, or at least most of her adult life, has been about this, and this is how it ends. She could not have predicted it.”

With Saxton dead, Nina tries to resign from the FBI, having fulfilled her personal mission. But her boss rejects her resignation, and offers her a new assignment: find Xavier, the mysterious kingpin whose power reaches all the way to the Oval Office. And in a shocking twist, they now know Xavier is none other than Jim’s brother, Joey, whose supposed death kickstarted the entire season.

Below, Morgan shares why Nina had to be the one to break the news to Jim, what convinced Saxton to go back on his plan to feed Jim to the Greeks — and what could be hiding on the show’s version of the Watergate Tapes.

What do you think ultimately changes Saxton’s mind about Jim? He says, “I can’t do this to my kid,” and he’s obviously talking about Genesis. But it’s also pretty clear he’s talking about Jim as well.

I think you’re right. He’s not keen on putting this in motion with Genesis in danger, and yet he does. But also, no matter how mad he is, he still loves Jim. He’s like a surrogate family member to him. So he realizes in that moment that the thing he’s supposed to do as the head of this crime family may not actually be the right thing. He lets his emotions get the better of him, and then he changes his mind. Then all hell breaks loose on them. 

That moment is played out on Keith David’s face. There is no dialogue, and it’s appropriately accompanied by Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” Was there ever anything in the script that he says to express this change of heart?

There were a couple of lines that we originally had in there that we ended up pulling because Keith is such a magnificent actor. He does so much with his performance, and you feel how torn he is, even as he’s walking away. As an audience member, you don’t want him to do it! And we get our wish fulfilled because he does change his mind and he does realize just how much love he has for Jim. But it was just incredible to watch Keith work. I can’t say enough about how brilliant he is as a performer. Every little nuance in that battle, there’s like an emotional component too, and a lot of that is because of Keith and Josh’s chemistry. And of course, his battle with Rachel is epic. 

Were those cut lines speaking to his indecision in the moment?

No, they didn’t address that. There were some lines in the flashback, where you did hear more of him talking to Genesis and things like that. So it is sort of like, you could feel his heart strings being pulled by what was happening to Genesis. But we felt like the images of him walking away were enough, especially with the song playing. The song was adding a layer to what’s happening there within him. And, like I said, Keith’s performance is absolutely staggering. 

Nina has a chance to just kill Saxton in this hail of bullets, but she doesn’t. In fact, she kills others to keep him safe. Why did she spare him?

She says in the scene when they’re having their big argument, she wants justice. So she was never going to kill him, although she may want to. She was always going to arrest him and make him pay for what he did to her father. But she had a moment where I’m sure she wanted to kill him. I know she did.

If she was seeking justice for her father by arresting Saxton, what does his death mean to her? Is there any satisfaction in this ending for her?

I think there is. I think it’s complicated for her, which is why I wrote it in the idea that she’s crying when he dies. There’s tears coming out of her eyes, because all of her life, or at least most of her adult life, has been about this and this is how it ends. She could not have predicted it. As you get to the finale, she’s having all these unexpected moments with this guy. They have the moment when they’re in the car and they’re all singing The Spinners. She doesn’t expect to have this closeness, this camaraderie with this man. I mean, he gave her his skillet bread! It’s so complicated for her because he obviously killed her father and she’s been carrying that wound with her. But she never expected to get to know him in this way. 

When she is chained up at the start of this episode and she reveals through gritted teeth who she really is, he bites back at her with all these stories about how her father wasn’t the virtuous man she thought he was. Will that muddied image affect her moving forward?

It gave her the insight that she would not have gotten as a child. It just explains that not everything is black and white. There are some gray areas. And yes, he was putting the squeeze on her father, but her father wasn’t completely innocent and her father did break the code. He did go to the police. He did all those things. Saxton almost, in the sense, feels justified in what he did, because there is a different code that he lives by. It throws a wrench in what Nina has always felt and it plants just a little bit of a seed of doubt in her. But that doesn’t explain away what he’s done. 

It’s a tale of two codes. She lives by one and he lives by one, and they can’t really find a way to meet the middle at the end.

I always wanted both of them to be right in a sense. They both have a case, and they both have their reasons for what they did. So that’s what makes it so hard.

Saxton initially takes a huge risk in handing over Jim, which potentially risks Genesis’ life. Did you ever consider if Wade would actually kill Genesis should Jim not survive?

Oh yes, because we have to play it like it was real. Look, I’m glad he didn’t have to, but he was willing. This is the clash between these two men who have been friends for so long, who know each other so well. They’ve been in the trenches together. These men are soldiers. They know how to do what needs to be done. When your family starts folding in on itself and turning on each other, what are the extremes that you’re willing to go through to protect what’s yours? It makes it all the more messy because they all love each other.

In the final moments, we learn Xavier is, in fact, Jim’s brother, which is kind of a huge twist that is just dropped on him by Nina. Why did you choose to have it revealed to Nina off screen, instead of having some grand discovery?

Well, we wanted it to mirror what happens in the pilot. She’s the one who reveals the secret about the C4 and Jim’s van. So all the work that she’s been doing this season was to uncover this huge truth and, because of the closeness that they’ve now come to share over the course of the season, she has to be the one to deliver that to Jim. She’s the only one that we wanted to deliver that to him.

You also defy expectations in that moment. They’ve survived this shootout, they meet on this beautiful cliff at sunset and you think maybe now is the time to finish that kiss they almost shared in Episode 6. Was there ever any consideration of making this more of a romantic moment, or was it always about these two as partners? 

It was always about them as partners. This is such a heavy thing to say to someone, right? But then we always wanted it to end on how there’s more work to be done. What is Xavier planning? That is the danger that we hope people want to see more of. How are they going to get out of this one? Episode to episode, I always wanted it to feel like we’ve backed Jim and Nina into this corner, and how are we going to get them out of it? So that’s the feeling that we wanted for the end of the season as well.

I love a cliffhanger. J.J. loves a cliffhanger, so honestly that was the way we planned it from the beginning. We were always thinking about when this reveal was going to happen. We moved it back and forth. Should it be early, or should it be later? Should it be in the next season? But as we were tightening down on what the finale would be, it seemed that this was the most important piece of information. That is what the season has been about, and this opens the door to so much for what Season 2 could be.

This ending also poses the question of what these two look like as more formal partners. Have you already thought about how that dynamic changes with Jim openly working with Nina?

Yes, absolutely. They’re still so different. They have different codes. They approach everything from opposite ways. He has his charm, she has her blunt force. They are going to have to learn how to do this better and with all the danger of new folks that are going to be knocking on their doors as well. So, there’s going to be a lot for them to unpack and get out of, and they’re not always going to be in agreement on how to approach it. 

What does this formal partnership between Nina and Jim mean for Awan, who is her official partner and saved her life in the finale?

Oh, he’s still an essential part of the story. They’re still partners. But now there’s the new dynamic of Jim being involved in this too. So part of it will be them figuring out how they’re supposed to do this. But Awan is the heart of the show in a way. He’s so sweet and thoughtful and determined in a very different way than Nina is. They all just complement each other so well. So there’s no version of this show not having more Awan and Nina moving forward. 

We also learn Izzy is incredibly sick, so Jim might finally have to shape up and be a real father to Luna, and not just play the part of her cool uncle who speeds in with his Duster. 

Exactly. That’s always been like part of the arc for his character in my mind. She told him in the pilot, “You’ve got to get responsible.” Now, as we go along, you see why she said that. There is so much at stake, and he loves that little girl. He’s going to have to learn how to be a good father for her. 

Let’s talk about the Nixon tapes. Where did this very specific bit of historical revisionism come from? Does it have value as we head into a possible second season? 

It has incredible value, which I don’t want to unpack too much. But it is a very important piece of the puzzle. For me, it was always about asking what MacGuffin could drive the stakes of the story and be unexpected. Obviously, there’s so much that’s done in this era in the ‘70s, and so many films and television did it great during the time. But how can we make it something that could only be of the “Duster” universe? This was our answer for something fun and unexpected, and it was just so much fun to come up with that stuff.

The missing minutes of the Watergate Tapes are its own real mystery in reality, so do you plan on playing with that history and what we know about the Nixon tapes in your story? 

Yes, because that’s the beauty of it. No one knows what’s on here. So it can be whatever we want. Of course, this show is very grounded in history and we do a lot of homework and we always engage our consultants and interview folks and all of that stuff. But there’s the historical piece of it and then there’s the “Duster” version of it where we get to play in the sandbox a little bit. I will say, this was something surprising and exciting that JJ really gravitated toward. When I was pitching it, he was like, “This is one of my favorite MacGuffins ever.” I think that’s because it’s just something that we all know of but we don’t really know.” That’s the cool factor of it.

Have you already decided what is on the Watergate Tapes in your world, or are you still cooking up that in your mind? 

No, we know. We’ve had endless conversations about it. When we were planning out the season, it ballooned into us talking about a second season and a third and a fourth, and we have a lot of that stuff planned out. We knew what needed to be on there and how it fits into the larger scaffolding of what we’re planning. We always wanted the show to feel like you’re peeling back an onion, right? As soon as you think you understand this layer, then there’s something deeper.

Would you care to tease what might be on your version of the Watergate Tapes?

I can’t give you too many spoilers! I hope people are curious though, and I hope they lean in and want more.

This interview has been edited and condensed.