Entertainment
Vanessa Morgan on What's Next for Bird & Carter
Carter Stevens may have opened the pilot episode of Finding Carter with a circle of friends, but with her new life and her new family came a new set of friends. The most important among that new set has been Bird, but in an interview with Bustle, Vanessa Morgan, who plays Bird, revealed that their friendship might be on its last legs. Carter and Bird have a major fight coming up and, according to Morgan, "it's going to be Bird's fault." This might come as a surprise to people who find Carter to be an unlikeable protagonist who causes a lot of her own problems, but it looks like this is going to turn the audience against Bird instead of Carter for once.
Carter and Bird have quickly come to be best friends. However, Bird's lonely home life is less than ideal and that defines her entire character immensely. She might have been introduced alongside Ofie, but it's clear that Carter is Bird's best and closest friend. Without her, Bird is just a lonely rich girl — and one who is going to make a pretty huge mistake. "I think because she doesn't have attention from her parents she seeks attention in other ways and she just messes up," says Morgan. "Honestly, the next betrayal that’s coming up, she messes up, she speaks out, she doesn’t know what to do and she’s just scared. She just has a huge, stupid, mess-up. It's pretty shitty."
Bird's home life might seem extreme — after all, she only knows how long her parents are going to be gone based on how much money they leave her — but on a show about a girl who finds out that her mother actually kidnapped her when she was three, Bird's background is one of the most normal and relatable aspects. Sadly, the biggest revelation about Bird's background so far is one that we won't be hearing more about for the rest of the season. Bird confessed to Carter that the portrait of her melting face was her way of dealing with an attack by a man wearing a mask, one heavily implied to be rape, and even Morgan thinks that the series could and should have done more with that.
"I think that’s something that we might have missed and maybe should have touched on, but if there’s a Season 2 I think that will be something that’s really interesting to bring back up," Morgan says. "I honestly think that will help explain why Bird can maybe act the way she does and is like a party girl and not really caring about life too much. I feel like she has a lot of dark secrets hidden beneath her."
Although a popular theory at the moment is that Bird's attacker was someone she knows, Morgan thinks it was definitely a stranger. Unfortunately we won't know for sure until Finding Carter is hopefully renewed for a second season. At the moment, Bird is just a reoccuring character so our chances of her rich, dark backstory being fully explored are slim to none.
Bird appears to be the catalyst for her upcoming fight with Carter, but there's still hope for her yet. Morgan reveals that in the season finale, Bird will be trying to redeem herself from her latest screw-up. She couldn't give any more detail than that, but it's enough to give Bird fans the hope that she might end the season on a high note in her character arc. Until then, we have to brace ourselves for the Carter and Bird drama ahead and hope that Bird succeeds in her quest to get back in Carter's good graces.
Images: aboutfindingcarter, v--morgan/Tumblr