Eternally Yours Stars Jaren Lewison & Helen J. Shen Break Down That Premiere Twist

CBS‘s vampire comedyEternally Yourshas arrived, and the premiere delivered a shocking twist in its final moments, setting the series down an unexpected path. Warning: Spoilers for the Eternally Yours Series Premiere!

The installment opened through the eyes of a human, Max (Jaren Lewison), who has been happily dating his girlfriend Emma (Helen J. Shen) for some time, but he doesn’t understand why she’s so secretive. It turns out that she is actually a vampire, the daughter of Charles (Ed Weeks) and Liz (Allegra Edwards), who can’t stand each other 500 years into their marriage.

When Max happens to visit their home on auditing business, he’s forced to give Charles and Liz a loose therapy session that almost turns into feeding time, until Emma steps in. Shocked to learn the true nature of his girlfriend, Max needs some time alone, but is convinced by Liz to try and pursue Emma once more, despite the threat Charles possibly poses.

Unfortunately for Max, he chooses to visit when Jesse (Parker Young) is teaching his half-human, half-vampire sons to use their powers, and a marble bust of Charles is telepathically thrown at Max’s head, causing a near-fatal injury. With only one option available to save their daughter’s boyfriend, Charles agrees to bite Max, transforming the young man into a fellow vamp.

Below, Lewison and Shen break down the premiere episode’s twist and what comes next.

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Max and Emma have such a great relationship leading up to the vampire revelation and ultimately his transformation. Is that picture-perfect romance going to continue, or is it about to get more challenging?

Helen J. Shen: What is perfect, right? Are they gonna have a, a smooth, non-bumpy ride? I don’t think so. I think there’s a lot of cynicism that Emma has inherited from observing her parents and observing the ways that relationships have worked out in her history and hopefully we get to see some of that history. But I do think that at every little bump that we see with Max and Emma, there is an opportunity for a lesson in communication, and I think that’s something that I’m really looking forward to seeing more of.

Jaren Lewison: I feel like it’s also, we have to recognize that they’ve been together for like six weeks. There’s a lot that they need to learn about each other as well, and especially now that we can finally freely talk about this ending, like there is so much change that’s about to happen. Max has so much to learn. Like Emma’s been doing this for, I forget how long… Helen, what, like 200 years?

Shen: I’m 250 years old.

Lewison: Yeah, like all of a sudden — Max is inherently a very energetic and positive person, but there’s a lot of change, and that’s gonna put stress on any relationship, and now it’s like, hey, you guys sort of have to be, we think maybe like eternally involved together. That’s a lot of pressure, which Emma says, to put on a new relationship. It’s a lot, so there’s going to be bumps and ups and downs, but I think that they’re learning how to communicate in a really nice way, and sometimes that is through conflict, and sometimes it’s through gracious understanding and anything in between, just the same as any real relationship does and is.

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Emma talks about wanting to date Max, but was her endgame vision involving Max becoming a vampire?

Shen: I imagine that this is one of maybe three humans that she’s ever dated. I think she’s mostly decided to date within the mythical creature world, and she’s dated so many flavors of creatures, I guess, and Max actually is a welcome change. I think that she certainly did not expect to feel this way about him. And now that he’s eternally tied to her family, this choice was super taken out of her hands as well, like, who can I choose to be meeting my parents? That’s not something that — I don’t think she’s brought many a suitor home to meet them.

What can we expect from Max’s reaction to this transformation? Is he excited for this next chapter?

Lewison: Finding out that vampires and mythical creatures and things are real, I think that as he understands his new life, it is, of course, overwhelming. Max is someone who is inherently a very positive person. I think that he’s willing to learn and willing to process and figure out his new reality, but that doesn’t mean that it comes with a complete ease of acceptance at all times. There are so many points throughout these next couple of episodes where Max is learning something, and he’s not understanding, and he’s asking, and people are sometimes not as patient with him, and sometimes they are. There’s a lot of new tradition and new understanding about this world.

Will Max continue to therapize the house, and will that get old real quick?

Lewison: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s just inherently who he is. Sometimes it’s maybe a little bit more overt than others, where just by being who he is, he calls stuff out. He forces everybody to look at themselves and look at how they’re interacting with each other, and it’s the same with Emma. Max is trying to create healthy communication and trying to maybe heal and understand those parts of Emma, but at the same time, advocate for himself, and how that has maybe impacted their own dynamic. What do you feel like, Helen, for that?

Shen: Yeah, I think the therapizing is how Max is able to be the mirror that the family can then reflect back on themselves, what are practices that they’ve learned and have historically done, and maybe just because we’ve done it this way for 200 years, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to continue doing it that way. I think Max is the catalyst for understanding why the rules are the way that they are. Sometimes the rules are there for a reason and there for protection, but I think there are a lot of things that we can potentially learn from the therapized generation, and also it can get a little didactic at times. So then it’s like, how do you communicate?

Yeah, I can imagine it will take more than a therapy session to break hundreds of years of bad habits…

Lewison: Oh, he’ll keep trying, don’t worry.

Eternally Yours, Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, CBS