New Timothy Olyphant Drama Series’ Biggest Changes From Bestselling Novel Explained By Showrunner

Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Five-Star Weekend.

The showrunner of the new Peacock series The Five-Star Weekend has opened up about why multiple changes were made to the story when adapting Elin Hilderbrand’s 2023 novel.

The Five-Star Weekend stars Jennifer Garner as a food influencer named Hollis Shaw, whose husband dies in a car accident. Several months after the tragedy, she reunites with friends she met at various points in her life for a Nantucket getaway. Garner’s co-stars include Gemma Chan, D’Arcy Carden, Regina Hall, Chloë Sevigny and Justified alum Timothy Olyphant.

Now Bekah Brunstetter, the showrunner of the drama, has explained to Variety why she made major changes to her adaptation. First and foremost, Garner herself had a hand in bringing the novel to life on the small screen as an executive producer.

During the development process, the Alias star opened up to the other producers and the writers about what she experienced in her own life when it comes to motherhood and infidelity. As a result, she was “a resource digging into how that feels beyond what we see in the book,” Brunstetter revealed.

She’s been really open about this — she’s lived the infidelity story, and it played out in a very public way. I’m not going to say she’s past it, but she’s certainly done a lot of work and she’s very evolved about it, which I love about her. But she was a resource digging into how that feels beyond what we see in the book. And then lastly, she knows what it’s like to have been Jen from West Virginia and then become this public person. She knows what that does to sense of self and to your identity when you fracture off into the famous Jen Garner and then the private Jen Garner. So all of that stuff became even more interesting when we started to talk about that.

When it comes to some of the specific changes that are seen on the show, the showrunner was very intentional in how she wanted to create this adaptation. For example, Electra is the one to reveal Matthew and Gigi’s affair, but on the Peacock series, Brooke finds out the shocking discovery from Gigi’s phone.

Brunstetter, who has worked on shows like This Is Us, American Gods and Switched at Birth, believes that Brooke, with all of her insecurities and tendency to overshare, is the “perfect person” to find out about the affair first.

This is a character who “desperately wants to be loved and liked,” so when she finds out about the affair, she reaches out to Dru-Ann and Tatum instead of going directly to Hollis.

But the process of going through that chain of people starts with Brooke herself agonizing over what to do, especially since she likes Gigi and is in a “weird place” with Hollis. Brunstetter wanted to put her in a “hilarious situation” where she’s forced to second-guess her decision and overthink the situation.

“To me, Brooke was the perfect person to discover it first. She’s my favorite character. I find her insecurity and her oversharing to be so relatable. She so badly desperately wants to be loved and liked, and as it is in the book, when she meets Gigi, she’s just enamored. They have their own little story going off shopping that’s in the show. I thought it would be so funny and agonizing and dramatic if she’s the one who finds out first, because if it were Tatum or Dru-Ann, they would just tell Hollis immediately.

“But Brooke is really agonizing over it, because she’s like, ‘What’s the right thing to do? What do I do with this information? I kind of like Gigi. Gigi’s really cool. I like how she makes me feel. She makes me feel picked. And is this my business? Hollis and I are in a weird place, so should I blow that up?’ I thought since she’s a person who second-guesses and overthinks, it would be a hilarious situation to put her in. She also has a crazy amount of growth over the weekend, and part of that growth is deciding what to do with the news.”

The affair itself is framed differently in the novel as well, but the twist was revealed at the end of the first episode of the TV show, which explores Gigi and Matthew’s relationship much more than the source material and what leads to the infidelity.

Brunstetter admitted that she believes “in the goodness of everyone, sometimes to a fault,” so she really wanted to focus on the theme of forgiveness that’s in the book.

That includes having Hollis and Gigi “reach a place of understanding” by the end of the season, even if they’re never going to be good friends after this. Hollis may have told Gigi to leave, which is the complete opposite of what happens in the novel, but she’s still able to forgive in the end.

Brunstetter knows that human beings are flawed, but she didn’t want to villainize Gigi; that would have been “too easy.” Instead, the showrunner and writers had a lot of discussions about “why people have affairs and how, of course, so much bad behavior is usually about something going on within you.”

“I’m such a sap, and I believe in the goodness of everyone, sometimes to a fault. But I love that a big theme in the book is forgiveness. I also love that by the end of the book, it’s not that these two women are going to be best friends, but they do reach a place of understanding and Hollis sends her on her way with grace, which I thought was really beautiful and moving. So I wanted to keep that part of the story. I just don’t write things where they’re bad guys. I think it’s more interesting when people are flawed, but the audience is taken on this journey of understanding why they did what they did, so I wanted to protect that.

“It’s too easy to just villainize Gigi — and she’s not villainized in the book. I wanted to dig into why she had this affair. So we talked a lot in the writers’ room about why people have affairs and how, of course, so much bad behavior is usually about something going on within you. Certainly, no one wakes up and says, “You know what I’d like to do today? Ruin a marriage, and blow up my life.” Love is extremely powerful, and feeling desired and wanted and seen — those are extremely powerful feelings, and they make us do crazy things.”

During production, the show filmed the forgiveness scene multiple ways, including one in which Hollis expressed more warmth toward Gigi. The version that appears on-screen was chosen because “we want to feel strength and growth from Hollis,” according to Brunstetter, and that the character has a backbone.

“Of course, we filmed it so many ways on set, and then this is where we ended up through the [editing] process. We had versions with more warmth, but why we ended up where we did is because we want to feel strength and growth from Hollis. We don’t want her to feel like she has such a capacity for forgiveness that she hasn’t gained strength over the weekend from her friends. It’s a fine line. We just wanted to make sure that she doesn’t feel like she doesn’t have a backbone.”

The Five-Star Weekend has earned mostly positive reviews from critics, who have given the series an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes. As of right now, the show is meant to be a miniseries, but there’s always the possibility that Peacock could renew it if the viewership numbers are strong enough.

While the author never wrote a sequel to the Five-Star Weekend novel, Brunstetter has ideas for a continuation of the story. Only time will tell if the streamer gives her that opportunity.

The Five-Star Weekend is now streaming on Peacock.

Release Date

July 16, 2026

Network

Peacock

Cast

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  Regina Hall

  Dru-Ann Jones

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  Chloë Sevigny

  Tatum McKenzie

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