'Claws' star Niecy Nash on the twists and turns of the series finale

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the series finale of Claws.

While the final season of Claws teased a bloody final showdown between queenpin Desna (Niecy Nash) and her former consigliere Quiet Ann (Judy Reyes), the series finale of the TNT drama ended with the core crew of malefactor manicurists (played by Nash, Reyes, Jenn Lyon, Karrueche Tran, and Carrie Preston) making it out of their drug-ravaged Palmetto, Florida, in one piece.

Although the show is both comedy and crime drama, Nash tells EW that the core of the story has always been about "a group of women that have their backs up against the wall and want their piece of the American Dream. And the way the system is set up, it doesn't always make it easy for you to get."

Here, the star and producer of Claws reacts to Desna's crew getting their happy ending in a very unexpected way, shares what challenges the show faced in the final season, and gives a shout out to some of the people that made this experience a "gift."

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you all know this was going to be the final season of Claws? Was four seasons always the plan?

NIECY NASH: Four seasons wasn't always the plan, but we knew before we began filming it, that it was the final season. So we went into it knowing this is our fourth or final, which is cool in a lot of ways, because sometimes you find out a series is not coming back and you don't have the opportunity to come back and button it up. So it's a good idea when you know ahead of time because hopefully you can come up with a way to end it that will still leave fans feeling satiated.

This was a particularly wild season. Where was the point in the season where you maybe were like, "How the hell is Desna gonna get out of this?"

Well, I'll probably say that was when I found out that Tony [Anthony K. Hyatt] was really DEA. How are we gonna come back from that? That was one of the points where I was like, "What am I gonna do?" And so that was probably one of the biggest, "I have no idea how to make it out of this, but I'mma fake it till I make it."

Was there fun in that as well, maybe thinking, "Well, now I gotta see how they escape this one because I can't see that happening."

Yeah, I mean, not to mention the fact that I'm filming the whole season with a broken foot. So there were so many things that needed to be figured out behind the scenes. And then on camera, it's how am I navigating all of these relationships? The relationships with the girls, because our whole crew started to implode, the relationship with Uncle Daddy [Dean Norris], the relationship with Dean [Harold Perrineau], because now he wants to maturate and do his own thing, and he's becoming a father. It is just so many things, even the relationship with Tony, all of it. As a character, you feel like you are barely keeping your head above water.

It's been interesting seeing fans take Desna's side as her crew begins to resent her for everyone breaking bad. Are you of the mind that Desna didn't force these women to do anything? Or do you think Desna maybe has a lot to apologize for?

The thing is, like the series and in life, you are accountable for yourself. And you can decide to follow the Pied Piper if you want to, but that's a choice that you make. So, I think that maybe Desna can apologize for going too far, for being blinded by money, but the choices that people make are their own. She can't apologize to you for a choice you made in your life because she hasn't forced these women to do anything. They want the money too. Just, of the gang, only one of them has the heart of the lion to lead them towards the finish line.

Watching the series finale, we only really see Desna through FaceTime in the first half. Was that to build tension, or did that involve a hump production had to get over?

You know, I haven't seen the final episode, but what I can tell you is that some decisions were made because we were filming during the height of the pandemic. So some of it, we had to figure out because it was after the show had already gone down because we couldn't film anymore. So there were spaces and places that we needed to fill in. So it wasn't initially decided, "Oh, some of these check-ins are going to happen via phone." It just was a casualty of the pandemic.

What's cool about the final showdown between Desna and Ann is that it's something that we saw teased in the beginning of the season, and we didn't know it'd actually come true. Do you suggest people rewatch the season now? Was that full-circle element of that shootout something you were really excited about?

Oh, I thought it was interesting that the showdown was a ploy, and that we found a way to make amends unbeknownst to the audience at that point. And it's like, "Oh my God is Desna really killing Ann? She's shooting this woman, what is going on?!" It seemed in the beginning like a dream, but when you watch it in the end, you think it's real-time until you discover that it was all a part of an elaborate plan.

Was it important to you that Desna and her crew got a happy ending?

I enjoy that because it was the thing that they were always looking for. Now, they did not find it in a way that they planned, they thought the happy ending was going to happen in Palmetto, in the high-end parts of town, but they thought that their dream was gonna be realized in Florida. Not in Cuba. Nobody saw that coming. Sometimes your life doesn't end up the way you planned, and so they were all able to be together to start this new life without all the pressure of trying to come up, like they were back in Palmetto.

Yeah, and it plays with expectations too. There was definitely a point in this season where I thought, "They can't all get out of this. Something terrible has to happen." So to see that you all were able to pull it off in a way where Desna still has her whole crew, made me say "Wow!"

Not only that, because of the restrictions and other people's jobs, we were trying to end it where Jack Kesy, who played the character Roller, was also a part of it, but the scheduling and all of it didn't work out as we had so many shooting changes. So you at least get to hear him and Desna on the phone at the end, and she confesses that she loves him. You get left with the idea that "Oh, they're back together in Cuba."

Speaking of Cuba, what was it like filming that final Havana scene? Did that come late in production? Did it get emotional?

You would think it would have, but it didn't because we shot it in the middle of the night and it was freezing. We were so cold. My foot was still in the cast, so we were sitting outside literally shaking. The best you could do was sit on top of a little hand warmer, so it was hard to be in your feelings and that uncomfortable at the same time, but we all did it.

As a matter of fact, we didn't even get to wrap the series together, where you usually see these videos where everybody is standing around and it's like "That's a series wrap." Because of the way it ended, we were not together because of the pandemic. We just got a call like, "Hey, that's it. Nobody is coming back." And so, I was at home, one person was on set, one person was at the gym, one person was at the grocery store, and it was like, "Wait, what? Oh wait. Oh, okay." So there was no big speech to the crew. We did not have a traditional series wrap.

What was the best part of working with Jenn, Judy, Carrie, and Karrueche, your main ladies? What will you remember or take with you from this experience working with them?

I would probably say the best part of this particular group is that this was a group of women who love their craft. So there were never any moments where you felt like it's being phoned in, it's not authentic, or I'm working with someone who really doesn't wanna be here. That's a little challenging. But when everybody who you are working with loves their job, and loves the craft, that makes for a delicious creative experience.

How about the guys? Is there a takeaway or something that you want to highlight about working with Harold Perrineau, Dean Norris, Kevin Rankin, Jack Kesy, and Jason Antoon?

You know, we had a great crew of people, and the one thing I will tell you is the biggest gift for me out of all of it. Now, I spend the majority of my scenes working with the ladies, but the gift to me in Claws was working with Harold Perrineau. As my brother Dean, he was inspiring, he was compassionate, he was always available, and I'll tell you, it was interesting because when I met him for the first time face to face, he was already in his process. And when I said hello to him, I was like, "Oh, hey, how you doing? I'm a fan," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. "My name is Niecy," whatever, whatever. He was already Dean. And I was like, "Is he okay? Why you not talking back to me?" And I was like, "Oh, he's already in it. Oh, let me get together." And so we became so connected emotionally, if we had tough scenes, we would walk on set, look right at each other and both tear up and have to turn around and walk the other way. We were so emotionally connected as Dean and Desna that it was bananas. And that was the gift for me, to know that you can manage that sort of connective tissue with another human being on camera. I've never quite had that experience before.

We talk a lot about writers and directors, and all excellent people have worked on Claws, but I feel that this show in particular has had some really great artisans working on it that normally don't get a lot of shine. Who do you want to shout out from the crew? Because I especially think wardrobe, and hair and makeup played a big role on this show.

I will tell you that my makeup artist for all of the seasons was Naima Jamal. Dolores Ybarra was our costumer. This last season I had Nell Rattler on my hair, and the one who spoke volumes through our nails is Morgan Dixon. She would stay up night and day making sure we had everything we needed for our characters, and even in our real life. So sometimes I don't know if glam really gets the credit they deserve, but they literally helped us all embody these women. And you saw that we're all so very, very different in our style, in our look, and our wardrobe became a character in and of itself.

The looks became iconic in a way because we had not seen this decadence. "You just gonna put on four belts? Where you going? What are you doing? Oh, you just gonna glue beads to your eyebrows? Uh, okay." And in this world, it all worked. I loved when Victoria Mahoney and Cheryl Dunye came to direct because it amplified and elevated what we were doing in a way that I wasn't even prepared for, and being able to change the energy on set in a blink of an eye is a gift.

What are you most proud of in working on Claws? For example, you all told a story about Black women that we don't often see. This is such an LGBTQ-affirming show. It could be many things.

Women that look like me and have some of the characteristics that Desna has, being over 40, not married, no children, having sex for her own pleasure, wanting her piece of the American pie, I'm most proud that that woman is fully seen in this series. She doesn't have to be the traditional mother with the husband and the 2.5 kids. She's just herself. So that particular woman I feel like was served in this series.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

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