‘Genera+ion’s Zelda and Daniel Barnz Tease the Futures for Your Favorite Couples

It’s been a wild ride filled with flirty texts, questionable hookups, and one unforgettable birthing scene, but it’s over. This week marks the conclusion of Genera+ion Part 1.

Altogether there will be 16 episodes in Season 1 of the HBO Max original. Half of Season 1 has already premiered, and the second half will premiere later this year, which means we’re in midseason cliffhanger territory. And when it comes to shocking finales, Genera+ion delivered.

Decider spoke to the series’ showrunners Zelda and Daniel Barnz about what’s in store for Greta (Haley Sanchez) and Riley’s (Chase Sui Wonders) budding romance as well as Chester (Justice Smith) and Sam’s (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) complicated relationship. The creative duo also broke down the aftermath of that birth and teased what was ahead for the rest of this season. Spoilers ahead for Genera+ion Episode 8.

Decider: I wanted to talk about Part 1’s finale, which follows Delilah (Lukita Maxwell) and her friends as she chooses to give her child up for adoption. You don’t see many shows that feature that arc for a teen mother. Why did you decide to go that direction with Delilah?

Zelda Barnz: I’m an adopted child, and obviously we wanted to kind of honor that storyline and tell that story as respectfully as possible. … [Delilah] didn’t know she was pregnant so figuring out what to do for her is mostly about what to do now with this child that she’s given birth to. We really wanted to honor her character and try to think in this character’s shoes what would she do, what choice would she make for herself. We obviously live in a world where women are often told what to do with their bodies. I think that she knew she could not raise this baby and did not want to take care of this baby. Ultimately the decision she made was to try to find a fire station in the best part of Southern California, by her standards, that she wanted to kind of leave this baby so it could have a good life but not a life with her in it.

Daniel Barnz: We also wanted to show with these kids that yes, they’re kids, but they are also capable of making these incredibly responsible decisions. That’s what’s amazing about Gen Z, they can save the world. We wanted to honor that spirit too. Adoption has been a miraculous part of our lives, so we wanted to tell that story as well. That’s also partially why we gave Arianna (Nathanya Alexander) her monologue where she talks about her own adoption story. It’s something we talk about in our own house as well, how many coincidences and sliding doors need to fall into place for you to be adopted into a certain family. But once you do, that’s your family.

I was tearing up as each of Delilah’s friends gives a present to this little human that they’re probably never going to see again. Was it your plan from the very beginning to have all the characters come together around giving up this child?

Z Barnz: I honestly think it was. I can’t quite remember. We’ve spent so much time developing the storyline that I can’t remember what our very, very first plan like where we were going with it was but I do think that we knew that we wanted to kind of slowly incorporate more and more of our characters into rallying behind this person, rallying behind Delilah. It really fits with that theme of chosen family and how they all kind of came together to be her chosen family in that moment because they’re the people that she feels most safe with and least judged by. That was really important to us, to show how all these characters play such an important role in this big decision for her and how she can really rely on them and trust them even though this is such a big situation that she’s been thrown into.

D Barnz: It was a nice counterpoint that here Delilah is placing her baby to create a new family with somebody else but simultaneously, like Zelda said, has this chosen family that she’s now a part of. It’s sort of like these counterpoint stories of people discovering and gaining families, which you know obviously we love.

To switch gears a bit, I want to talk about Greta and Riley. They’ve become the standout couple of the season. I can’t scroll through twitter without seeing people talk about how much they love them. Are we going to see more of their relationship unfold in Part 2?

D Barnz: Definitely yes. It’s not all smooth sailing moving forward, but there is an undeniable connection and chemistry between those two girls, and I think a very foundational love that exists between them. But you know, force of true love never runs smooth.

That’s very true. Are they going to be Genera+ion‘s big will they, won’t they couple?

Z Barnz: I could definitely see that being them. Something that I’ve been interested in exploring with this show — in my high school experience, there were a lot of couples that dated throughout all four years of high school and never broke up and never had drama. They were just a couple that was kind of accepted. And so I would definitely be interested to explore with certain people what that might look like, just to have a steady-going couple. I don’t think we see that a lot in TV. I think that’d be really interesting. But also, I don’t know if the Greta and Riley are the right couple for that because they’re fundamentally very different people, but their love for each other is like so strong. That can be a very complicated situation.

D Barnz: You better watch out, Z. People are gonna read a lot into those words. But I will say that I’m so happy because for us… we always wanted them to be the fundamentally central will they, won’t they relationship of the show. The fact that people have really invested in them is so exciting.

Can you walk me through Riley’s decision to hook up with another girl at the end of Episode 7 after being rejected by Greta?

Z Barnz: Yeah. Riley is somebody who sometimes uses sex to deflect other feelings. Sex gives her a sense of power and empowerment, and she was feeling extremely vulnerable in that moment because she had opened up to Greta so much. Greta had shut her down in a way that Riley didn’t quite understand. And she was so emotional and feeling so vulnerable that she was just looking for a way to feel like she had some control and some power. She knew that the way to do that was like a quick hookup.

I also want to talk about Chester (Justice Smith) and Sam (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), the other semi-couple. They’re very confusing. It’s clear that Chester has romantic feelings for Sam. Are those reciprocated?

D Barnz: We really wanted to steer clear of tropes about teacher-student relationships. What was really interesting about this one was to feel like you understood why Chester would fall and fall hard for Sam. Particularly for Chester as a character who suffers from some profound loneliness, and then to meet this, you know, incredibly amazing, Black queer person in his world who inspired him, you understand why he would kind of fall for him.

One of the things that the show really tries to do is live in the mind of our characters. So we’ve really explored that storyline through Chester’s eyes. And I think at some points you feel like Sam is into Chester, but that’s also partly because you’re just watching this throw the show through Chester’s eyes. I mean, in my personal mind, I don’t think Sam has feelings for Chester. Other than incredible respect and fondness, I don’t think it went over the land to the realm of romance. But Chester really thought it was. Chester’s incredibly painful and heartfelt plea to be with Sam, “I don’t want to be alone” — it’s meant to break hearts and certainly broke mine.

At the end of Episode 8 it seems that Sam is open to having a relationship with Chester. Not necessarily romantic, but some sort of connection. What do you think that relationship is going to look like?

D Barnz: You know, one of the things that we really explore in the second block is actually a non-romantic relationship between Sam and Riley. You see Sam actually stepping into his own as a guidance counselor and interacting with Riley and trying to help and advise her, because she has a lot of anxiety. That’s really where we see that go. This is not the last interaction between Chester and Sam. But it didn’t feel to us like there was a lot more to take this. In order for Sam to be a great guidance counselor, he really couldn’t interact with Chester as anything but his guidance counselor, and we wanted to make sure that Sam always did feel like he was a really responsible and solid guidance counselor who wasn’t crossing any boundaries.

Z Barnz: The most important thing about Sam’s character too is he’s really good at his job and he also enjoys getting to know these kids. There were teachers at my high school who really enjoyed chatting with students. I think he’s one of those teachers, and Chester interprets that as a casual, almost flirty, dynamic. That’s not actually what’s meant to be from Sam’s POV. Sam wants to be good at his job, but he knows that he can’t be casual with Chester anymore, because Chester interpreted that previously in such an, incorrect way. It would definitely be awkward for Sam and Chester moving forward.

That makes a lot of sense. I also want to talk about Genera+ion’s fans. You’ve now seen people watch the show. What’s been your response to their response? Were there any plot points or characters that fans have clung to that really surprised you?

Z Barnz: There has been so much love for Greta and Riley as a couple, which was definitely a very important relationship to us when we were writing it. So I’m really glad that that’s been so well received.

D Barnz: One thing, honestly, that, it didn’t surprise me per se. But we have such love for the character of Arianna. She has a very irreverent sense of humor. And I think that because there are so many strong, amazing queer fans out there, some of what Arianna said has rubbed some of them the wrong way. But what I really hope is that by the time you get to the end of 108, those people will come full circle, 180 degrees on Arianna, and understand she’s a character that has so much depth and complexity and emotion. She uses her humor as a bit of a shield. She kind of gets a little too outrageous at points. But there is this very layered and nuanced character underneath. What I’m hoping is that people move past some of that initial worry and fall in love with her in the same way that we are in love with her.

That sort of pearl-clutching worry over Arianna, I’ve seen it from my critic friends and people roughly my age. Have you noticed it in younger fans as well? I know that’s a hard question to answer.

Z Barnz: Having been in high school recently, there were just kids who talked like that sometimes. So with realism being our goal… It’s definitely true that there are sometimes kids in high school who just talk that way. And that doesn’t necessarily make it OK. But also, that kind of humor is to deflect deeper feelings and complexity. Arianna has a lot of depth that she doesn’t necessarily always want people to see. I think that she sometimes comes across as her main focus is like controversial humor and dark humor. That’s not all there is to her, and we really start to show that later on in Part 1. I hope that people warm to her more because I really do love that character.

D Barnz: It’s an interesting mixture. There are some people who feel like she crosses too much of the line, and then there are some people who, like Zelda said, see her as somebody who’s just going for some shock value. My sense is is that the fans are split, but again, just love her character so much. Nathanya is such an extraordinarily brilliant actress that I need people to go on the journey with Arianna and see where she comes out the other side because I do actually think is one of the most surprising and kind of developed arcs of the show.

What else can you tease about Genera+ion Part 2?

D Barnz: In this first block we were exploring some really complex relationships between two people like Chester and Sam and Greta and Riley even between Nathan (Uly Schlesinger) and Naomi (Chloe East) as siblings. In block two there’s a lot of triangles that begin to form. That adds a lot of complexity and juiciness to some of those relationships.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Watch Genera+ion on HBO Max