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Forever Your Girl: Facing impending death, Tripp (Lucas Adam) and Wendy (Victoria Grace) take their relationship to the next level.
As their hostage situation in the beer tank grows dire, Wendy and Tripp continue to distract themselves with an imaginary “trip to Paris.”
“On top of feeling trapped, Wendy also starts feeling like the walls are closing in around her,” says Victoria Grace (Wendy), noting that her character’s claustrophobia has already caused her to have a panic attack. “So Tripp, being the caring partner that he is, suggests multiple ways to distract her from this. One of his ideas is this Paris getaway. He begins by setting the scene, that they had wandered around Paris all day checking out all of the museums, and then it’s around 9 p.m. and they’re having dinner at the finest cafe. It shows how much thought and care Tripp put into all of this just to comfort Wendy.”
Just as the couple starts to get caught up in the moment, they hear noises outside the tank and scream for help. “At this point, Officer Goldman has already had Wendy and Tripp film the hostage video, so their hope is that the police or Tripp’s family saw it, and they’re showing up to rescue them,” explains Grace. “In that moment, they’re completely running on hope and adrenaline only to find out that their situation is going to get a lot worse.”
When their cries for help go answered, “it’s complete devastation,” sighs Grace. “After they realize that no one’s coming for them, they notice that the [air] vents have been closed. So now they have very limited time. They realize that the chances of someone coming to find them are very slim. They end up thinking about everything else in their lives, things that they could have fixed. They start talking more about the existential and confiding in each other.”
Wendy worries what her death, on the heels of her brother Li’s, will do to her parents. She also laments that she’ll never get to get married or have kids. Tripp counters by saying he’ll marry her now.
“It’s a whirl of several different emotions,” says Grace, summing up Wendy’s reaction to Tripp’s proposal. “The love between them in that moment is tenfold. They’re also getting swept up in their emotions, because they know they’re going to die, but at least they have each other. It’s everything combined — the dire situation, knowing that they have such limited time left… And it’s also the idea of, ‘What the heck. Let’s go for it.’ ”
Grace believes that Wendy already knew the extent of Tripp’s love and commitment to her. “I mean, before this moment there was never a big dramatic confession of feelings,” she muses. “But Tripp and Wendy are the kind of couple who are so happy just being together and taking everything one day at a time. So they didn’t have to tell each other everything. [Their feelings were] left unspoken.”
Now, however, the pair puts their love for one another into words, exchanging “these extensive vows to each other,” recounts Grace. “It’s just the sweetest thing. They both end their vows with, ‘Until I draw my last breath on this earth’, knowing that their last breath is coming very soon. When I first read the script, I started tearing up. For Wendy, she’s always wanted to get married and have children. Now Tripp is giving her this one and only opportunity to experience a wedding with the person she loves most.”
Wendy and Tripp pronounce themselves husband and wife in what they believe are their dying moments. “It’s all very touching,” says the actress. “Towards the very end, obviously they’re becoming way more dazed and loopy, and they’ve already accepted their own deaths. They’re fading in and out of consciousness. They’re cuddling up together and just sort of daydreaming about where they could have their real wedding.”
That is, if by some miracle, they could make it out alive….
