What Really Happened to Carmen at the End of Peacock's M.I.A.? Danay Garcia Has Some Thoughts
Actress Danay Garcia gives her take on Carmen's fate in Peacock's M.I.A. series, and why she felt like she was playing four roles.
*** SPOILER WARNING! This story reveals major plot twists in Peacock's M.I.A. series! ***
Danay Garcia auditioned for one role for Peacock's new crime drama series, M.I.A. — and to her surprise, got two.
The show follows Etta Tiger Jonze (Shannon Gisela), a young woman from the Florida Keys who is seeking revenge against the cartel members who killed her family. Etta's father Dan is played by David Denman (The Office). And her mother is portrayed by Garcia (Fear the Walking Dead, Prison Break).
(Warning: Major plot spoilers ahead for Peacock's M.I.A.)
RELATED: Everything To Know About M.I.A., Peacock's New Original Crime Drama Series
After Etta's entire immediate family, including her parents, is murdered, she makes it to Miami, where she tracks down her Aunt Carmen. To Etta's surprise, as well as to the surprise of viewers, Carmen is not just Leah's sister, but her identical twin. (Leah and Carmen were estranged throughout Etta's life.)
And the twins are both portrayed by Garcia. The actress didn't know during the audition process that the part she was reading for would ultimately mean playing twin sisters.
"I was auditioning for Carmen and then when I get Carmen, I find that I also got Leah," Garcia told Peacock Blog in an interview before the show's premiere. "The entire thing of this job is to take it a day at a time and focus on what's in front of me today, because if I would think like two weeks ahead or a day ahead, it would be overwhelming."
In flashback scenes in Episode 6 of Peacock's M.I.A., titled "Original Sin," viewers learn that Etta's father Dan was dating Leah's twin sister Carmen first. Then, when Leah came to visit her sister, Leah and Dan began an affair that forever damaged the sisters' relationship.
The flashback scenes take place before Etta was born, and viewers learn that Leah and Dan's trysts lead to Leah becoming pregnant with Etta.
"Twenty years ago and we see their flaws and then you understand how far they went," Garcia told Peacock Blog. "Leah was just a beautiful mess, just a great mess, and Carmen was figuring herself out. She was trying to be in control, but then she realized she wasn't."
RELATED: Who's in the Cast of Peacock's New Crime Drama Series M.I.A.?
"I created two energies," Danay Garcia said of playing Leah and Carmen on Peacock's M.I.A.
As for playing both Leah and Carmen, Garcia said: "I was just living both worlds at the same time. I created two energies and it was my body. I had to put my body through each one of those energies that I was creating so they could hopefully blend."
In the present-day scenes, Leah is a fierce matriarch trying to navigate protecting her family as they work closely with a drug cartel and also operate a marina as a front.
"When we established Leah, we can see... how she built everything and how she became to be the best version of herself as a person, as a wife, as a mother, as a businesswoman, like she really made it happen, her life," Garcia said.
Carmen, who's head of security at a nightclub in Miami in the present-day scenes, is also at the "top of her game," Garcia noted.
"She has her job and her home and she's thorough, and she's a successful woman with flaws, but very successful at what she does," Garcia explained.
Why Danay Garcia felt like she had "four roles" in Peacock's M.I.A.
As if playing twins who are vastly different wasn't challenging enough, playing the sisters as they were decades earlier in flashback scenes, as well as who they later became, took it to another level.
"I really got a set of twins, but there are four roles because present Carmen is one woman, past Carmen is a completely different person," Garcia said. "It's a different world, so I discovered that as I was doing the flashback. I'm like, 'Wow, I'm just really going back in time with this.'"
Carmen's fight scene with Elias and her fate
In the final episode of Peacock's M.I.A. (Episode 9, "Aperture"), Carmen, who was a Marine at one point in her life, gets into a brutal fight with one of the most lethal characters in the show, cartel enforcer Elias (Alberto Guerra), in her home. Etta finds her aunt at the scene, injured and bleeding, and Carmen informs her niece that the cops and medics are on their way. Elias is in the next room, on the floor bleeding and barely alive.
Garcia trained for two weeks with the show's stunt coordinator for the scene. She wanted to be able to portray the fight with Elias true to Carmen's military background.
"Carmen is a woman that is Marine," Garcia said. "She's trained and she's capable... He got in the wrong house."
When sirens were heard, Carmen urged her niece to flee since authorities still don't know that Etta's alive after her family's murders. Carmen also told Etta which hospital the ambulance would take her to.
But when Etta and her two friends arrive at the hospital, and Etta tells them that Carmen texted her which room she was in, they show up to find an empty room with Carmen's personal items packed into a plastic bag labeled with her name.
Etta cries as the trio assume Carmen is dead. In a later scene, Kincaid (Cary Elwes), who goes back into police work at the end of the show, pulls up a file for "Carmen Tiger" when a departing colleague forwards him her unsolved cases.
What happened to Carmen on Peacock's M.I.A.?
"She was murdered," Kincaid says, as his colleague responds, "Home invasion."
While reviewing the file, Kincaid also sees surveillance footage from Carmen's home that shows Etta entering, proving she's still alive after hiding out since the murders of her family and faking her death.
Considering that Carmen was well enough to text out her hospital room number before Etta arrived to an empty room, we're wondering if Carmen has some of her niece's tricks up her sleeve.
When Peacock Blog asked Garcia about Carmen's fate, the actress remained coy. "We'll have to wait and see," Garcia said. "I think she's really smart."
