‘Elle’ Stars & Co-Creators Unpack Love Triangle: “No Matter Who She Chooses, She’s Still Choosing A Side of Herself”

SPOILER ALERT: The following reveals major plotlines for Prime Video‘s Elle Season 1.

Elle (Lexi Minetree) does not need a man, nor is she defined by the love triangle she experiences in the first season of Prime Video’s Legally Blonde prequel series. However, it is quite fun watching a triangle situation play out.

By the end of the first season, it’s unclear where things stand between Elle and Miles (Jacob Moskovitz). Considering she and Dustin (Zac Looker) shared a sweet kiss at the Winter Informal Carpet Mart concert, especially one that was witnessed by Miles.

“The only man Elle needs is Bruiser, baby Bruiser boy. Like a lot of people in high school, Elle gets crushes, and what’s interesting is both those boys bring out different things in her,” Minetree told Deadline. “Miles is someone who is the classic athlete archetype who she instantly has chemistry with, and connects with. Obviously, there are things that hold them apart and make it a little bit more tumultuous than she would like.”

At the beginning of the show, Miles is off limits because he is dating Shannon (Danielle Chand), and it seems at first that Dustin is more of a friend for Elle. Thanks to his British accent, he stands out at Rainier West High School as Elle does in her bright pink wardrobe.

“Dustin is kind of the wild card. I wouldn’t say they’re enemies, but they definitely butt heads [at the start], but he pushes her out of her comfort zone and pushes what she expects anyone to say or do or to believe in, and gives her a cause to fight for,” Minetree added.

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Looker, in a separate interview, admitted that Dustin may have made a “quick judgment” of Elle “possibly before he should have” when they first meet. He sees her as a disruptive presence in Seattle and representative of outside forces subtracting from the city’s authenticity.

“One of the nice things about this love triangle, which sometimes juxtaposes some of them as they exist in other kinds of media, is that both [guys] are fairly decent options. As opposed to other times, where it feels like one of them is a bit of a horrible person,” Looker said, laughing. “So, instead of it being a question of her choosing between these two guys, it feels a lot more like her choosing between different sides of herself, because we each bring out a different part of her character.”

Looker continued, “It feels more like what it should be, which is a narrative vehicle for growth and for self-acceptance and realization. She doesn’t necessarily have to choose between them, because there’s a foundation of friendship with each relationship — it feels like each can exist on its own. It feels like no matter who she chooses, she’s still choosing a side of herself, which is nice to play.”

Moskovitz echoed both his co-stars’ thoughts, summing up where Miles is at in his life when he meets Elle and how she influences him as well.

“I think so much of the love triangle is about growth, and which side of herself Elle wants to activate. For Miles, he has lived his entire life being what he thinks he should be for everyone else: the perfect student, perfect athlete, hard worker, socially well-liked and received, but when he meets her, there’s a spark,” the actor said.

“He’s not sure what it is, and he’s trying to [figure it out]. But he also recognizes a version of himself that he aspirationally wants to be, which is more authentically himself, not living for other people and what they think he should be. That’s the journey when you first meet him, and when he first meets her, and then we kind of go on from there as he’s trying to untangle it the entire first season,” said Moskovitz.

Laura Kittrell emphasized the idea of crushes as part of the “firsts” of being a teenager in high school and wanting to put Elle through that rite of passage while presenting two valid options for her.

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“Something that we talked about when creating this triangle was not only who these boys are and how they’re different from each other, but also what did they bring out of her that was different. For Miles, there is a safety, not in a negative way, but just a person who really believes in her and is supportive. He is a great place for her to turn when she has landed in this place where she feels like she doesn’t connect with anybody and doesn’t understand the world,” Kittrell told Deadline. “Dustin is a person who challenges her and has this fun banter, but is always a little bit argumentative. So there’s a little more tension there.”

Wherever Season 2 heads in terms of the dynamic, executive producer Caroline Dries has a summary of how things tend to play out between Elle and the boys.

“I think a great example of that triangle dynamic is in Episode 2. We always say Dustin is the guy who pulls her into the mosh pit, and Miles is the one who carries her out of it,” she said.

Lauren Neustadter, Hello Sunshine’s President of Film and TV, brings it all back to Elle herself.

“She learns a lot about herself through getting pulled in and getting taken out,” Neustadter said. “Ultimately it always comes back to who is she, who does she want to be, and who will she become, which is the journey of the show.”

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