Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’s Creator Breaks Down Tatiana Maslany’s Emotional Courtroom Scene & the Importance of the Season’s Final Shot

The following contains spoilers for Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed Season 1, Episode 10, "Queens," now streaming on Apple TV.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed 's Paula (Tatiana Maslany) had one heck of a ride throughout the series' 10 episodes. Not only did her ex-husband and his new wife have it out for her in a nasty custody battle, but she was also framed for two murders that she didn't commit. Oh, and she got completely scammed.

Paula definitely had no good days during this journey, but her bad luck was seemingly going to come to an end in the final showdown between her and her ex-husband, Karl (Jake Johnson), for custody over their daughter, Hazel. After a powerful monologue performed by Maslany, in which Paula emotionally details how she kept her life together as best she could for her daughter, the judge declares that Hazel will remain in New York with her mother.

In an exclusive interview with CBR's Sean O'Connell, series creator David Rosen broke down the process of writing the monologue that would ultimately sway the judge over to Paula's side.

“We knew that, all season long, Paula had never really gotten to have her say about why she was doing what she did. Which isn't that crazy. If it was a dad, there would be no question of why," Rosen said. "But for a mom, for some reason, there was some sort of stigma attached. We knew this was her moment, and really thought a lot, and went back and forth. I co-wrote that episode with Andrew Gottlieb. Together, we wrote a bunch of different pieces for the monologue. We knew how it was going to start and end, and some of the bits."

But before even filming the scene, Rosen wanted Maslany's input on the monologue. Ultimately, it took a combination of Rosen and Gottlieb's writing, plus Maslany's performance, to convey the emotional weight of the double standards Paula faced in the comedy-thriller series .

"Tatiana is such an incredible part of the team. We sent it to her and were like, ‘How do you feel about this? How does this feel? How does that feel?' Some of the things she wanted to dig into. Then we rewrote until we landed where we landed," Rosen said. "For me, in those big emotional scenes… I think [Maslany] probably was perfect, but I'm not trying to be perfect there. This is an emotional moment. Everything else we shot in the court that day may change what she's doing. Tatiana is just unbelievable. There are no cuts in that. It's just her doing it.”

Aside from the courtroom, the most talked about scene in the Season 1 finale of the Stephen King-approved series was the very last one. After getting her happy ending, Paula's life is thrown upside down yet again when she receives a threatening text message revealing a mysterious person is using video footage of her intentionally hitting and killing her neighbor in Portland to blackmail her.

CBR asked Rosen if this scene was always in the cards for the ending of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed , to which he replied:

“It was, actually. In the process of getting this show picked up, I'd written a couple of episodes and a [show] bible. In the bible, I had described that very scene. Sometimes, when you write the bibles, you're like, ‘Maybe…?’ But that was something that we always aimed towards.”

Does this cliffhanger mean Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is coming back for a second season? Apple TV has yet to reveal a Season 2 renewal for the series, and Rosen isn't certain that one will happen, as he told TVLine . But he definitely has "plans" for Paula's arc, teasing that her life won't get easier and the writers plan to "keep [Paula] on [her] toes."

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is available to stream on Apple TV.