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Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Horror of Dolores Roach finale.Now available to stream on Prime Video, The Horror of Dolores Roach tells the tale of a woman who is forced to go to extreme lengths to survive. Dolores’ relatability causes viewers to root for her throughout the show’s eight episodes and even manages to make her killing spree feel like a mishap rather than an intentionally malicious act. With all bridges burned, and no place left to call home, Dolores flees Washington Heights in the finale’s final moments, putting an end to the tale that she’s been narrating since the pilot. However, the episode only concludes once Dolores seemingly finds Dominic and enacts her revenge.
The Horror of Dolores Roach is based on the Spotify podcast of the same name and was created by Aaron Mark. Mark adapted the series for television and serves as the show’s writer and executive producer. Justina Machado stars as Dolores Roach and is most well-known for her leading role in One Day at a Time. Meanwhile, Alejandro Hernandez, who plays her partner in crime, Luis, recently wrapped on the final season of NBC’s medical drama, New Amsterdam. The cast also includes Kita Updike, K. Todd Freeman, Ilan Eskenazi, Jeffery Self, and Jean Yoon.
Aaron Mark chats exclusively with Screen Rant about Dolores’ complicated feelings for Luis, her genuine relationship with Nellie, and his own hopes for a season 2.
Aaron Mark Talks The Horror of Dolores Roach
Screen Rant: You went from making a podcast to filming a TV show, which is an entirely different ballgame. What has this process been like?
Aaron Mark: The process has been quite a journey. I wrote the play ten years ago this summer, and then developed the play in New York for two full years before we did the Off-Broadway production in 2018. It happened in a really crazy way because after we did the play Off-Broadway, I had come out to LA to pitch the television version of the play. And people thought I was out of my mind. It was really, I think, not the moment for people to receive that idea.
But I had all this material that was to be the serialized version of Dolores’ story, and Mimi O’Donnell, who had run the Labyrinth Theater Company and produced the play Off-Broadway, brought the project to Gimlet, and we made the podcast. So the irony of all of this is that when the podcast came out, suddenly there were all these people interested in doing the TV version of Dolores’ story, which I had tried to do in 2016. So it’s been a very windy, bizarre, surreal, fantastic process that really could not have happened any other way, I think.
Since there are multiple different versions of this story, did you want them all to mirror each other in some way? Or did you want to make them unpredictable for those who haven’t seen the other formats?
Aaron Mark: Oh, that’s a great question. That is top of mind for me really every day throughout this process, and in a different way throughout the podcast process. It was really important that this television iteration was both true to the essential DNA of the piece. I think, for those who saw the play and for those who heard the podcast, or even for those who haven’t, it is the same character. It’s the same project. And yet, I didn’t want to make for television, simply a visualization of what we had done for audio. I absolutely want to surprise people who think they know what they’re in for. It’s a slightly different menu of victims if you will. We have some new characters for the television version. There are some twists and turns. We want to keep people on their toes.
When I spoke to Kita [Updike], she mentioned that she was involved in the podcast. How did that work out with casting? Did you just want to bring her over to the show?
Aaron Mark: She’s the only cast member from the podcast who came with us to television, and the podcast cast is unbelievably great. I pinch myself every day. The cast of the podcast and the cast for television are both just insanely extraordinary. We knew that the television version was going to be a totally different cast. Daphne, who I’d written the play in the podcast for, who’s involved as a writer and a producer on the television version, wanted to focus on writing and producing. So we had brought Justina in. We were so extraordinarily lucky to get Justina to play Dolores for TV.
She’s so unbelievable. We knew we wanted to surround her with a brand-new cast. And the truth is, Kita auditioned. She said, “I don’t care. I’m sending in a tape.” And we said, “You know what? She’s so fantastic.” And she had been so uniquely involved with me in finding that character for the podcast, that it felt really right to everybody on the team, that if we were to bring one cast member from the podcast, it would be her. And it was absolutely right that she’s the connective tissue between the two.
Dolores narrated her story for the TV show, and you even mention the podcast and the play. What was the reason behind that creative choice?
Aaron Mark: It’s a really unusual show in that she’s in every scene. That really is so unusual on television. We talked a lot about the whole show really being about your identification with this character. That she’s a serial killer, who’s not othered. She’s somebody who certain audiences may at first think, “Oh, I have nothing in common with her. I don’t have her lived experience. I would never do what she’s doing.” But the endeavor of the show is to walk you step, by step, by step through how you, dear viewer, are also Dolores, as am I.
We’re all the same, and backed into a corner, under the same circumstances, we would do the same thing. So it was really crucial, first and foremost, that the viewer is aligned with Dolores emotionally and psychologically. And I think one of the most effective ways to do that is to have her, via voiceover, really hold our hand and walk us through this, and know that we can trust her. Whatever we feel about what she’s doing on screen, we know that we’re her confidante.
What was your intention behind the relationship with Dolores and Luis? I thought it was extremely interesting. It seemed like she genuinely did care for him at times, but at other times, she didn’t want anything to do with him.
Aaron Mark: Thank you for that question. Their relationship is so…it’s quite a relationship. I think at times, she wonders if she does genuinely have romantic feelings for him, and I think at times she does. Absolutely there’s a love there for this guy. And I think, frankly, not to get too sort of heady about it, I think Dolores is replicating a dynamic that she had with Dominic, and then with Tabitha. Here she is with this guy who says, “I don’t care how many people you kill, I will love you, and I’ll make it all okay,” and that’s irresistible to her. The world has turned on her.
The people that she loved most dearly, and the people that she trusted most implicitly have abandoned her. And here’s this guy saying, “I truly don’t care what you have done. I don’t care what I have to do to prove that. I’ll do it.” In a way, that’s Dolores’ Achilles’ heel. They’re so symbiotic and perfect for each other in so many ways, and it cannot last. I mean, they’re so disruptive. And my God, the chemistry between Justina and Alejandro is unreal. That’s the kind of chemistry, as a producer, as a creator, you just pray that two actors have that kind of chemistry. They completely locked into the nuance of that, and the love-hate, repulsion-attraction, and codependence.
I love that you dive a bit into Luis’ background as well. Is that part of why he was so willing to do all of these horrible things for Dolores? Because of his past trauma?
Aaron Mark: Hurt people hurt people, right? The endeavor of the whole show is that from the perspective of Dolores. She’s doing these things we have feelings about, but let’s walk through how a human being, who is like you or me or anybody, comes to that. In Dolores’ eyes, for a lot of the season, Luis is this funny, kooky guy who’s cleaning up her mess, and it takes until pretty late in the season for that reveal to come out, and for her to fully see him, honestly, and to go, “Oh, my God. This is a kindred spirit.” This is someone who has been so deeply hurt, who has not processed what’s happened to him, and who was trying to exercise something in a different way than she is.
But there is a deeper connection between the two of them than I think she even sees, and I think than the viewer sees. Certainly, what we learn has happened to him, is something that we don’t like to talk about in this culture. Sexual abuse of young men is something I’ve very, very rarely seen depicted in media. And it was important that we have a scene where we show that she too has never really addressed that subject in her life. She hasn’t really encountered that and isn’t quite sure how to comfort him, but chooses to lead with love. She consoles him. She absolutely is there for him as a partner in that moment.
Speaking of relationships, the most genuine, to me, felt like Dolores and Nellie. I don’t think she really had a bad thought about Nellie the entire show. What were you hoping to achieve with that dynamic?
Aaron Mark: Nellie is a kind of lifeline. Nellie, I think, is the person in the orbit of the shop who is most clear on who she is and what she’s doing there. Everybody else has secret, secrets, secrets, secrets. Nellie is like, “Here’s who I am. I’m here. I see you. I’m present.” And that’s a splash of cold water in Dolores’ face that’s at first kind of a shock but is a really necessary, again, lifeline. Nellie is a support. So when what happens to Nellie happens to Nellie at the end, that’s crossing a line for Dolores. That’s too far—that Nellie has been dragged into the mess.
The story does come together in the end, but there were a few things that were left open. It feels like there’s potential for more. Was that on purpose or was the intention always for this to be one season?
Aaron Mark: There’s much more story to tell. We like to say Dolores Roach is unkillable. She will pop up anywhere, she’ll make it work, and she’ll figure it out. There’s a lot more of her story to tell. And because we open and close the season in the present day, the meat, if you’ll pardon the pun, of the series is in 2019, pre-COVID. We’ve set up this idea that four years into the future, this character who just wanted to be left alone, she wanted to be underground, she wanted to be under the radar, now is a world-famous serial killer. And the idea of what that means for her now that her story is being taken from her—I think there’s a lot more story to tell. So I implore people to watch the first season so that we’re able to keep telling the story.
About The Horror of Dolores Roach
The Horror of Dolores Roach, based on the hit Spotify podcast series of the same name, is a contemporary Sweeney Todd-inspired urban legend of love, betrayal, weed, cannibalism, and survival of the fittest. Dolores Roach (Justina Machado) is released after an unjust 16-year prison sentence, and she returns to a gentrified Washington Heights.
Dolores reunites with an old stoner friend, Luis (Alejandro Hernandez), who lets her live and work as a masseuse in the basement under his empanada shop. When the promise of her newfound stability is quickly threatened, “Magic Hands” Dolores is driven to shocking extremes to survive.
Check out our other interviews with The Horror of Dolores Roach cast:
All eight episodes of The Horror of Dolores Roach are currently available to stream on Prime Video.
Source: Screen Rant Plus
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