A Million Little Things: When Ashley's Blue Folder Mystery Will Get Some Answers
Spoilers below for ABC's A Million Little Things, so be sure to catch up before reading.
When it comes to emotionally driven storytelling, ABC's hit drama A Million Little Things features slightly less than a million details worthy of fans' attention. Christina Ochoa's Ashley is at the heart of quite a few curiosities, with that mysterious blue envelope as a holy grail of potential Dixon family bombshells. According to Ochoa, who spoke with CinemaBlend ahead of Episode 7's debut, fans will have to wait just a while longer for answers about Ashley and the blue envelope.
Of all the characters whose lives were thrown into dismay when Jon killed himself, Ashley is the one whose background and motivations haven't been heavily developed just yet. Not that we know every single factoid about Will or Katherine or Delilah, but Ashley remains the show's biggest living and breathing enigma, beyond maybe Barbara Morgan. (I mean, she didn't factor into the episode "I Dare You" at all.)
Since we just got the seventh episode in a 17-episode season, it seems like A Million Little Things will be offering more answers and insight right around Episode 12 or 13. That means we'll probably have to wait until after the show comes back from its winter hiatus to pull more clues together. Although the midseason finale, airing December 12, could certainly drop a big cliffhanger that keeps people talking.
Even though we've seen some of what is inside the blue folder, where it's said that Ashley could be trusted to handle everything, the bulk of it is still a complete unknown to audiences. (As well as characters other than Ashley and Jon.) When I expressed my own curiosity about how much information could possible be hidden inside that folder, she alluded to the fact that it won't necessarily contain ALL the answers that people may be hoping for.
Indeed, the details behind Jon's death may be important in many ways, but for the sake of viewers, A Million Little Things focuses more on how the motivations behind the suicide affected everyone else who is forced to reconcile with them. Even the ones that they have no idea they'll be reconciling with anything in the future.
As Christina Ochoa put it, A Million Little Things creator D.J. Nash and his creative team are intent on piecing these stories out little by little, so that the late-game reveals can have the biggest impact. The actress spoke to just how little viewers can actually claim to know about Ashley or her motivations. In her words:
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As it has gone with many of the characters already on A Million Little Things, no one's story sets them up as a 100% moral protagonist or as a devious and irredeemable antagonist. At this point in the narrative, Ashley may seem like she's got nefarious intentions in keeping everything a secret, but upcoming episodes could flip that entirely with one shocking explanation or another.
In Episode 6, fans watched as Ashley came extremely close to passing the blue envelope to Delilah, but had a change of heart once she thought ahead to the potential consequences of that act. All she could think of was Delilah raging out and blaming her for keeping it all hidden, even though Ashley claims to have a reason for keeping it all hush-hush.
Not that Christina Ochoa is making excuses for Ashley's actions. The actress acknowledges her character is in pain like everyone else, which plays into the choices she's making, and Ochoa says that Ashley does believe she can handle everything that needs to be done. Does that mean she should? The jury is out on that one. Here's how Ochoa said it:
Sounds like Ashley needs the biggest pair of snowshoes out there. What information do you guys think is hiding in the blue envelope, and how will Barbara Morgan factor into it all?
We'll find out later, but make sure to get all the information firsthand by watching A Million Little Things every Wednesday night on ABC at 10:00 p.m. ET. For more mysteries and dramas that have viewers hooked, take not of everything in our fall TV premiere schedule.
Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper. Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.