Deadly Class Ending Explained with Benjamin Wadsworth

This article contains spoilers for season 1 of Deadly Class.

Deadly Class took us on a wild journey through a secret underground school for assassins, past a trippy encounter in Las Vegas, and to a climactic battle with enemies both intimidating and ridiculous. Through the eyes of new student Marcus Lopez Arguello, played with scrappy intellect by Benjamin Wadsworth, we met the killers-in-training who found themselves at the mercy of their circumstances more often than not. We spoke with Wadsworth about his character’s evolution and his impressions of some of the more shocking aspects of the season finale. Beware, spoilers ahead!

Den of Geek: That was some master manipulation of Chester there in the end! Do you ever get the sense that when you’re delivering your lines that Marcus is great at doling out insights but is horrible at realizing his own faults?

Benjamin Wadsworth: I mean, yeah, pretty much. Marcus is a little narcissistic and he’s a bit of a hypocrite. He doesn’t really think much of the bad things that he does. But in the finale he kind of realizes that his old views on revenge were kind of wrong, and he changed a bit. But yeah, he’s really good at pointing out other people’s flaws, but not so great at pointing out his own.

There’s really no resolution to a lot of the different story lines, in particular the friction between Saya and Maria. What do you see as the takeaway from their relationship with Marcus and each other at the end of season one?

That they probably all just hate each other.

That’s not a horrible position to be in for Marcus. I don’t think there would be too many people that wouldn’t want to be in your shoes with Maria on one side and Saya on the other.

(laughs) Yeah!

A lot of the characters in addition to Saya are scattered to the winds by the end of the finale. Are we to conclude that Maria and Marcus are captives of El Diablo?

Yeah. I’d probably say so for now. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen if we get to season two, so for now, they’re kind of just shitting their pants and they’re either going to be killed or they’re being held captive.

What in particular did you enjoy or maybe identify with with Marcus’s punk view of the world?

I like that he looks for some sort of deeper meaning, that he doesn’t really like the surface level shit. He’s down to talk about the vulnerabilities and the things that are wrong with the world. I kind of relate to that, I guess.

Do you ever get into the comics that are being referred to yourself? Or the music even?

The music, definitely. I’m not that big of a comic reader. I used to be when I was younger, but music’s more my thing.

And now that the season is over, were there a particular part of season one that you were excited to see in its final form once it aired, either for your character or an animated sequence, a fight sequence, whatever?

Oh man, yeah, I mean, the diner fight sequence, all of the Vegas episode, the season finale to see Marcus finally kicking some ass!

The season finale was just one big giant action sequence for everybody!

Pretty much, yeah! It gave us a little bit of a break for acting. We kind of just got to fake hit stunt doubles.

So we lost Lex, which isn’t entirely shocking to those who have read the comics, but I noticed they still kind of toyed with us a bit with Billy’s initial rescue. Do you feel like it was important to have at least some kind of loss moving into season two to keep the stakes high for Marcus and his friends?

Yeah, absolutely, because all of these characters are being put through these dangerous situations, but no one’s really dying. If you’re being put into situations like these, someone should. So we see someone finally get critically hurt and I think people are not going to be able to breathe.

Yeah, I noticed on social media that you were trying to promise the fans that there were no deaths going to be happening in the finale, but that was a little bit of fun you were having. What has been the fan response from your perspective?

Very, very positive, surprisingly. Because I know comic book fans can be very pissy if their beloved adaptation isn’t good, but apparently ours is living up to the comics, at least a little bit. It’s living up to the comics a little. So, I’m surprised with it, but I’m also really happy with it. It’s very, very positive.

And what are your feelings about the school atmosphere? What did you feel were the highlights for you as an actor but also Marcus’ favorite classes, let’s say?

I mean, I think Marcus’s favorite class was Poisons class because he really enjoyed Jürgen. I think he liked his views on the world. I personally enjoyed any scene with Benedict Wong in the school, because I just liked seeing that interesting dynamic with Marcus and Master Lin. It’s almost like a father and a son, like one’s trying to rebel and one’s trying to punish. And also Benedict Wong is an amazing actor.

I almost feel like Marcus should have been portrayed as pretty good in Master Zane’s class too, given that in the finale, he was pretty good at improvisation.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. He just knows how to pull shit out of his ass, pun intended, and try to not die.

Going back into the season a little bit. What were the scenes with French Stewart like in terms of just having the psychopath on your side and how do you feel like they got him back into his pen? Because I actually wondered what happened with that.

I loved shooting with French. French is a friend of mine. He’s just so funny. He was always ad-libbing something at the end, and it was always making me laugh. Like if you remember back to the scene where him and I kind of get into each others faces when he’s like, “Give me some more leash, mother fucker, we’re in the city!” If you see, I look away because I’m laughing! And he probably just went back into the school willingly because he has a place to eat and sleep and not be in jail and he can still teach kids about his wonderful ways of psychopathy or killing people.

Like any show that is in its first season, there probably was a bit of evolution for the chemistry between the actors on set. Do you feel like by the time we got to the mosh pit, for example, that you and the others had pretty much bonded enough to feel pretty free in a scene like that?

Oh yeah. Absolutely. That was probably the most fun, at least that I’ve had, on the show. It was a way for myself and Marcus to kind of just breathe and forget about everything else.____

We’ve been following Deadly Class since the very beginning! You can read all of our news and reviews for the first season here. Our review for the season finale is also available for interested fans. Will Wadsworth and his cast mates be rewarded with a Deadly Class season 2? Only time will tell…