In the third episode of Running Point’s newly released second season, Kate Hudson’s Isla laments that she never had many female friends growing up.
“My mother taught me all women were threats,” she recalls in voice over during a college flashback. The now-head of the Los Angeles Waves basketball team explains it wasn’t until college that she made her first girlfriend, Ali, played by Brenda Song.
The duo were a core part of the first season, but as the comedy series — executive produced and created by Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen — expanded into its now streaming second season, things got bit rocky for Ali and Isla.
“We get to really meet Isla and Ali when they meet in college and then explore their friendship,” Hudson tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Their origin story, as we like to call it,” Song chimes in.
Song’s Ali is forced to push her boss and best friend — tough combo — for a raise. When it’s revealed by Isla’s brother that it’s not happening and Isla’s not very concerned about her friend in that moment, Ali opts to take a job in Toronto.
The third episode’s cold open shows a montage of the pair’s friendship through the years, mostly in flashback, before modern-day Isla, in voice over, reveals her friend’s perceived betrayal.
“It’s always fun to do flashback stuff like that. It really rounds out your character because we can talk about and imagine what our backstory is, but to actually film these scenes and see our younger selves was so much fun,” Song explains.
The actress debuted a thick Chicago accent for her character in the flashback, something she said Running Point’s showrunnner, Stassen, helped her with. “I literally made him send me a voice note of what kind of Chicago he wants,” she tells THR.
The actresses can’t stop stressing how much fun they had filming the flashback scenes, which Stassen and the crew clearly did their research for to make as accurate to Hudson and Song as possible. “In the beer pong scene, I was wearing an outfit that I owned,” Hudson says. The recollection elicits a laugh from Song, who seems to remember immediately.
“I have a feeling that somewhere out there is probably a paparazzi photo of me in that exact outfit. I had the Ugg boots on with the little Juicy [Couture] terry cloth dress,” she recalls. “I was like, oh, my God, I think that was mine.”
In addition to the fun, season two allowed the actors to explore the pair’s friendship further. “We go a little bit deeper into our relationship. We have our own love story in this season,” says Hudson.
The Song Sung Blue actress notes that the show gets the chance to explore what it’s like to work with your best friend, particularly when one side is the boss, and how “complicated” that power dynamic is.
“In this world that Mindy, Ike and Dave have created, these are all incredibly flawed, not very morally coded people. They’re really trying to figure out how to be good people,” Hudson continues. “It’s nice for us to have that because as imperfect as Isla is, Ali is also very much so imperfect, hence why we became such good friends.”
Song adds that getting to explore storylines like Ali and Isla’s history is the beauty of having a second season. “The foundation has been laid, you get to do these sort of crazy things and get to explore these characters on a different kind of level,” she says. “I feel like Isla and Ali appreciate each other so much more after the season because you have to work through those kinks in a friendship to come back together.”
All episodes of Running Point season two are currently streaming on Netflix.
