Palm Royale creator Abe Sylvia is already several moves ahead of the audience and deliberately uninterested in chasing them. “We started writing season two before season one had even aired,” he says, dropping the kind of revelation that would give most showrunners hives. The writers’ room was open while he was still finishing post-production on the finale. “As I was working on the final edit of the finale, I was breaking episode one of season two.”
It wasn’t panic-inducing. It was freeing. “I didn’t have to worry about the audience’s response to things. I wasn’t writing to a reaction,” Sylvia says. “That’s actually very liberating — to not have the… pearls of wisdom that come from the internet informing well-said storytelling.” He stops himself mid-thought, amused. “Not junk. I shouldn’t say junk.”
That freedom shows. Season Two comes out louder, sharper, and more baroque — a glittering mess of social sabotage, emotional extremity, and incredible opening choreography. When asked how he keeps track of all the twists, Sylvia reveals, “Yes, it’s in here,” tapping his head. “That’s a dangerous place to be.”
Danger is the point. Sylvia’s approach is less about long-term roadmaps than controlled chaos. “You always want to leave yourself someplace to go,” he says. “Especially on this show — always leaving the characters in an extreme enough circumstance that it gives you enough narrative fodder for the next episode.” The extremity isn’t just plot mechanics; it’s emotional mirroring. “It’s not just extreme situations,” he explains. “It’s mirroring where the characters are emotionally on their journey toward this nirvana of happiness — which they may or may not ever reach.”
Season One flirted with American exceptionalism dressed up in couture and cocktails. Season Two makes a harder turn. “We definitely wanted to explore sisterhood,” Sylvia says, “female relationships between women who are all ambitious in their own way, but living in a world — especially in 1969 — where the container was much tighter.”
That container snaps shut immediately. Maxine Delacorte, again played with feral precision by Kristen Wiig, opens the season literally strapped into a straightjacket. Her crime? “She had the temerity to cry at a party,” Sylvia says. He’d been deep into out-of-print histories of Palm Beach society, uncovering stories that felt uncomfortably familiar. “You hear these stories of these wives — you could tell there was nothing wrong with them. They just had a feeling. And their husbands put them away.”
That history becomes text, not subtext. “The disgraced socialite apartment is our homage,” Sylvia says, “to socialites of yore who committed the crime of having a feeling.” He laughs, then lands the line. “Not just towing the line.”
One line in particular sticks with him, too — a moment that cuts through the pastel madness with surgical clarity. “I can’t act like I’m angry, because people will think that I’m crazy,” Maxine says. “And if they think that I’m crazy, I won’t be free.” Sylvia pauses. “Talk about a line that hits right away.”
That balance — camp as delivery system, feminism as payload — is what keeps Palm Royale from floating away on its own fabulousness. The musical opening, the choreography, the Scooby-Doo chaos of secrets and felonies — it’s all surface pleasure with sharp edges underneath. Sylvia knows exactly what he’s doing. He just prefers to do it without the internet breathing down his neck.
Watch the full interview above and then check out the trailer below.
