Sebastian Stan Breaks Down the Larger Implications of His Show-stopping ‘Pam & Tommy’ Episode 7 Moment

Pam & Tommy Episode 7 “Destroyer of Worlds” finds Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan) at a new low point. Pam has learned that the sex tape scandal has lost her roles while Tommy is also seeing his rock star status undermined by shifting norms. It’s in this episode, though, that Tommy finally gets the opportunity to stare down the destroyer of his own world, Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen). Instead of making peace with the contractor-turned-thief or beating him down with vengeful violence, Tommy has a literally incendiary conversation with the man.

It’s a tense scene that lets actor Sebastian Stan shine while hammering home the general thesis of Hulu’s Pam & Tommy: Pamela is the real victim in this awful episode of pop culture history.

Pam & Tommy is a wild dramatization of the infamous “Pam & Tommy” sex tape scandal of the ’90s. The public slut-shamed the Baywatch star without realizing that the recording, which had been filmed during the couple’s honeymoon, had been stolen from Lee’s safe and distributed without either participant’s consent. The thief, Rand Gauthier, had been inspired to steal the safe in the first place because he had been unceremoniously fired by Lee and held at gunpoint by the rocker.

Pam & Tommy Episode 7 imagines a scenario where Rand reaches out to Tommy demanding the money he owes him. It winds up being a darkly comic and tense scene that crescendoes with Tommy burning the cash due to Rand — but not without defending Pamela.

“I think for me what stood out the most about that scene was I thought it was very well written,” Sebastian Stan told Decider recently, adding it “was him just simply questioning, ‘You know, fine. You can say whatever you want to say about me, but why did she deserve this? Why did she have to go through this? Okay, you want to call, you want to have beef with me? Fine, but what about her?'”

Stan added that he thought it was a “very honest moment” for the show, looking on “Seth’s character and his own realizations and implications.”

“And perhaps, maybe reflective enough of our own implications, I guess, as an audience, right?” Stan said. “How people did approach this whole thing back in the nineties? Were they even thoughtful about [Pam’s situation] or not?”

By and large — Pam & Tommy argues — not.

Where to stream Pam & Tommy