Marilyn

Marilyn was a recurring character who had appearances in Season 1 and 4. She was Edie's childhood best friend, and the catalyst for Edie returning in Season 1.

Development
As The Creator started writing the show in 2011, Marilyn was a character that was included in the original draft. She was Edie's childhood best friend and the two were like "two peas in a pod". Marilyn's purpose was to be called by Gabbie/John to help Jake during his depression. From here, Marilyn would reveal she knew where Edie was located, and gave her a call, thus making her return. She would go into a business with Edie, and they would be business partners and leave for the UK at the end of Season 1.

When Edie returned in Season 4, the writers never had any plans for Marilyn to return. It wasn't until much later they decided to give Marilyn a backstory; that she got pregnant at a young age and would have given the baby up for adoption. She would originally reveal this in Season 1 in an attempt to get Edie and Jake to bond, and then would search for her child upon her return in Season 4. However the writers felt like this storyline was just shoehorned in to give the character something to do, and didn't feel passionate about the story, or like it had much purpose.

Seven years later, in 2018, the decision to cut Marilyn's character out completely was made. It was a tough decision on the writers, as she was a character introduced in the very first draft, but they had made minimal progress towards her as a character after seven years of writing and felt like her character just wasn't working out. Her role in the first season was given to Gabbie, and her additional storylines were scrapped.