“Wild. Chaos. Moving.” Abigail Spencer Teases Best Medicine’s Finale & Stepping Into Her Rom-Com Era

It feels like Best Medicine just graced our screens and warmed our hearts, and now the finale is upon us.

While it’s bittersweet to think about taking a hiatus from Port Wenn after tonight’s deliriously fun and heartwarming finale, we’re here to get you hype about what’s in store.

Before we could get sidetracked about cozy sweaters, we caught up with the warm, delightful Abigail Spencer to chat about Louisa’s empowering journey, love squares, and what to expect heading into tonight’s must-see finale!

First, I have to say congratulations on season two! Why do you think the show has resonated so strongly with audiences?

Well, it’s a delight. I think the show is really good, and we need something good. And I think it strikes a chord. My soft pitch is that it’s like Northern Exposure, Doc Hollywood, and Schitt’s Creek had a baby.

You just want to look at it. You want to hang out with these people. It’s good, clean fun. And I believe that there is a moment for feel-good television right now. And it’s cozy. We want to just cozy up and hang out with people who are delightful.

And honestly, I think the actors are amazing. So I’m biased, but I think Josh Charles, Annie Potts, Josh Segarra, Jason Veasy, and Steven Spinella are all God’s gift to humanity.

Louisa has made such strides this season in figuring out what she wants out of life. How would you describe her evolution from when we first met her to now, heading into the finale?

What a nice two-degree shift for Louisa. She’s ended her eight-year fiancé-dom with Sheriff Mark. That’s a big deal.

It’s a big deal. And I think there was a little bit of jumping out into the abyss of, like, I’m doing this thing, and I got to do this thing, and I don’t know what’s on the other side. And as she makes this decision, she meets this curious character, Dr. Best, who pulls something else out of her.

The discovery that she wants to have a baby, and that it isn’t tied to a relationship, keeps Louisa on her own trajectory. It’s a nice platform for season two: how is she going to do that? Is she going to do that with someone?

Is she not? What’s going to happen? The school is closing. Is she going to be the principal? Is she going to keep the school, but how many other jobs? IVF’s expensive.

So like, is she going to do that route? It’s nice. And also that it incorporates the medical piece of it.

It will require a medical component.

Obviously, it’s a great way to get Dr. Eden Montgomery, played by Eliza Coupe, who’s wonderful, has such opposite energy, and is so funny.

So it keeps it in the medical world that she’s got to do something that’s medically related as an engine, but it’s also very much character-based.

Yes, I agree. There’s a great balance there. And also the triangle sort of expands to a quadrangle, which is really fun.

Yeah, we’re getting a square, we’re getting cubed. I love that.

Speaking, of course, of the triangle, Louisa genuinely cares for Martin. She genuinely cares for Mark. What do each of these guys represent for her in her life? What does progress look like with them?

Martin brings — there’s an opposites attract piece to that. She’s very heart-centered, and he’s very intellectual, so how will they learn from each other through that? And I mean, Louisa says it: there’s a push-pull thing, which is maddening.

It’s maddening and also provocative. So it’s awoken something in her. And Mark, you’ll see in the finale, he’s making a very generous offer.

There’s this generosity of spirit, of love, of kindness, of friendship. And who knows what she’ll choose? But I like that Mark isn’t going away. Like they have to navigate Port Wenn together, and maybe it will bring them back together. We don’t know.

The finale captures the heart of Port Wenn. It’s been a fun trajectory from beginning to end. What’s something you hope viewers take away from this finale when they see it?

Oh, my gosh. Well, I think it’s very difficult. These are long scenes just from a technical point of view. Liz Tucillo writes very wonderfully. It’s like doing theater. These scenes are long.

There are so many players. It’s voices off all the time. And so it really is a testament to the actors to be able to play these very long scenes, all these different things happening at once. Everyone is very good at their jobs.

Josh Charles has so many things to do. He holds the main piece of it. But to be able to toe that line of grounding these kinds of chaotic moments and very large group scenes and believing them and making it very funny — it’s a hard part to strike, you know.

Shooting it. It was like, “Oh, my God, this is — what are we doing?” That’s how it felt, and hopefully the viewers will feel how it felt, that “what?!”

The group scenes are always hilarious and so chaotic. But they always look like so much fun!

There are a lot of people. And we’re in tight quarters. If everyone wasn’t so delightful, honestly, and so good at their jobs, or if we were in lesser hands, it really could be tough.

But we sail through the days because everyone is so wonderful. I think we are very lucky to be a part of this community, this story, this project, this show that we all feel is really good for the world. And when you feel like you’re able to do something like that, you just kind of play jazz.

It sort of folds into my question: what has been the most rewarding part of playing Louisa and bringing her to life on screen?

I love my comedy heroes. Lost one of them in the past year, Diane Keaton.

Yeah, Diane Keaton and Catherine O’Hara in the same year was devastating.

Yeah. Yeah. I burst into tears. And I only met Catherine a couple of times. I did get to have dinner with her one time, which was a total delight. And I got to meet Diane as well.

I feel a responsibility. I feel like they’re passing the torch. And what Julie Roberts paved the way, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, all of these tremendous actresses…

I feel like Louisa is getting to hold that space, and I get to do it in television format.

Amanda Peete just talked about this, being able to play longing, that’s the crux of romantic comedy, really understanding longing.

Louisa is in a real moment of longing. And I really enjoy how they keep putting me in situations where I have to cover how I’m really feeling. Louisa is practically lovely in every way, but she’s in a big shift in her life. And so getting to do that feels very real to me.

And I love a rom-com. So I’m so glad that I get to do that.

Before Mad Men, the first 10 years of my career, I was mostly doing the genre. The fact that I get to kind of now do it in a format where everybody’s watching is nice. No one saw what I did before Mad Men!

OK, final question. What are your three words that you’d use to describe the finale?

Wild. Chaos. Moving.

There’s something that happens at the end that’s very moving. Yeah, it’s the heart of the show. It’s real, and you’ll see that once we get past the chaos, we’ll get to the moving.

You do not want to miss the season finale of Best Medicine tonight at 8/7c on FOX. We’ll have you covered with a full review!

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