{"id":581103,"date":"2026-07-12T00:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T00:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/581103\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T00:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T00:16:12","slug":"elle-eps-on-legally-blonde-easter-eggs-james-van-der-beek-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/581103\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Elle’ EPs on ‘Legally Blonde’ Easter Eggs, James Van Der Beek, Season 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT: <\/strong>This story contains key plot details, including the ending, for \u201cElle<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on Amazon\u2019s Prime Video.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere most showrunners spend the days before their series\u2019 debut worrying whether audiences will tune in, and whether they\u2019ll ultimately get renewed, \u201cElle\u201d bosses Laura Kittrell and Caroline Dries had a different problem: navigating the press without spoiling the already-shot Season 2.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn January, Amazon renewed the \u201cLegally Blonde\u201d prequel series, which follows Elle Woods in high school, that transformative period before the plucky co-ed applied for Harvard Law School and solved her first case by tapping into the fundamentals of perm maintenance. And the studio\u2019s confidence was rewarded: Amazon reports that \u201cElle\u201d was the most-viewed show on Prime Video in its first week of release.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt has been quite a time,\u201d Kittrell who created the show, said, joining Dries over Zoom on the eve of \u201cElle\u2019s\u201d July 1 debut. \u201cAmazon wouldn\u2019t want it any other way,\u201d Dries joked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are very lucky,\u201d Kittrell added. \u201cThe two weeks leading up to the premiere, all our cast were in a panic, like, \u2018Can we watch Season 1 again? We have no memory of what\u2019s new, what\u2019s old, what\u2019s a spoiler, what\u2019s not.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, there are plenty of twists and turns in Season 1. The Prime Video show takes audiences back to 1995, when Elle\u2019s (newcomer Lexi Minetree<\/a>) world gets flipped upside down as her family unexpectedly moves from Bel-Air to Seattle after her plastic surgeon father, Wyatt (Tom Everett Scott) botches a procedure. Much like her first days at Harvard, the peppy, pink-attired Elle struggles to fit in \u2014\u00a0this time, with the grunge-obsessed kids in the Pacific Northwest. The first season\u2019s eight episodes \u2014 titled with quotes from the Reese Witherspoon-starring 2001 movie, like \u201cWhoever Said Orange Is The New Pink Was Seriously Disturbed\u201d \u2014 follow as Elle navigates her newfound friendships and crushes, while also uncovering a conspiracy over the misappropriation of school funds.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s where James Van Der Beek<\/a> comes in.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe late TV star, whose name is synonymous with the millennial teen drama, \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek,\u201d joined \u201cElle\u201d to play school superintendent and mayoral candidate Dean Wilson. Elle\u2019s mother Eva (June Diane Raphael) \u2014 whose life is also thrown into chaos by the move \u2014 finds purpose in aiding in Wilson\u2019s campaign, but it all turns out to be for naught when Elle reveals that he was the ringleader of the whole scheme.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were so flattered that he wanted to do this show to begin with,\u201d Dries said of Van Der Beek. \u201cLaura and I are such big fans of his, so just getting to work with someone who was a hero when I was growing up was a treat. And getting to watch him take a character and elevate it was so exciting as a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cElle\u201d executive producer Jason Moore had worked with the actor on four episodes of \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek.\u2019 \u201cWhen his name was up on the audition, it was great. Since he turns out to be a bad guy, I was like \u2018What fun for him,\u201d Moore recently told Variety.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd the gig ultimately gave Van Der Beek, who was in treatment for Stage 3 colorectal cancer while filming, as much as he contributed to the crew behind the show. \u201cIt really is a time where I don\u2019t feel my pain,\u201d Moore says Van Der Beek told him about performing. \u201cFocusing on work, I really actually am completely distracted, not only when the camera rolls, but just when I\u2019m around all those people. As he got sick, he got really wanted to hold people close and bring people together. He was always really good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe role was to be the actor\u2019s final performance. Van Der Beek died<\/a> on February 11, 2026, at age 48. His work on the show was commemorated with a special dedication.<\/p>\n

\n\tRead on as Kittrell and Dries break down more about the making of \u201cElle\u201d Season 1 \u2014 from how Lexi Minetree channeled Witherspoon\u2019s Elle Woods, the show\u2019s \u201890s musical homages and \u201cBreakfast Club\u201d episode, and how Van Der Beek rewrote his character\u2019s ending.<\/p>\n

\t\tLexi is an incredible find. It\u2019s almost uncanny how much she has the mannerisms of Elle down \u2014\u00a0she practically transforms into Reese Witherspoon at times. What was the moment when you thought, \u201cOh, wow! This person is the reincarnation of Elle Woods.\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLAURA KITTRELL:<\/strong> It was day one. There are Elle-isms that we\u2019ve given her that are intentional. Like, \u201cCan you say this one thing from the movie?\u201d and she nails those. It was one of the things I was the most stressed about going into making the show: \u201cOh my God, how are we going to be able to find this person?\u201d And it\u2019s one of the bigger questions people have before they watch: \u201cIs she going to be able to do it?\u201d It\u2019s amazing now that people have started seeing it. I feel like 30 seconds in, people are like, \u201cOh, she\u2019s got it, it\u2019s fine,\u201d and then you don\u2019t worry about it anymore. That was the experience that we had on day one on set. It was just like, \u201cOh yeah, we\u2019re good, we don\u2019t have to worry about that part. Great!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This story contains key plot details, including the ending, for \u201cElle,\u201d now streaming on Amazon\u2019s Prime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,147202,117,19,17,54102,239809,128],"class_list":["post-581103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-eire","tag-elle","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-van-der-beek","tag-lexi-minetree","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}