Marianly Tejada’s pregnancy forced Ransom Canyon season 2 to change the story built around Ellie and Yancy. The season had already been mapped out before filming, but the rewrite pushed a different plan into the show’s finished episodes.
April Blair said Tejada told her “a few months before we started shooting” that she was pregnant, and she added that “her due date was actually the week we wrapped.” The showrunner said the original plan for Ellie, Yancy and Sidney was “a little bit more love triangle-y also,” which meant the production had to move fast once the schedule changed.
April Blair On The Rewrite
“I think a few months before we started shooting, she let me know that she was pregnant, which is great news and fun, but it was not the story we had planned for Season 2,” Blair said. The season starts several months after Sidney’s arrival, and Ellie is already pregnant when the new run opens.
Blair also said, “Because of how pregnant Mar was when we were going to start filming — I think her due date was actually the week we wrapped — it would be very difficult to hide it.” That made the choice simple: write the pregnancy in, or spend the season fighting the camera.
By Christmas And Mid-January
By Christmas, Tejada had wrapped her scenes, while the rest of the cast stayed in production until mid-January. Blair said, “I think she gave birth like a week after we wrapped her,” which puts the timeline right on top of the filming window and explains why the rewrite had to happen before cameras rolled too far.
Minka Kelly fronts Ransom Canyon season 2 on July 23 sits alongside a season that ends with Ellie and Yancy split. Ellie pushed Yancy away to protect their daughter, and the show closes with Sidney pushing Ellie off the front porch after a frightening confrontation, sending Ellie into labor.
Ellie, Yancy And Season 3
That ending leaves the relationship in a very different place from the one set up at the Fuller ranch in Season 1, when Yancy was waiting to marry Ellie and she did not show up. Instead, she met his secret wife, Sidney, at Gracie's Dance Hall, and the rewritten Season 2 turned that setup into something less triangular and more about survival.
Blair said, “I think it created all these amazing stakes and this fresh new story,” and that is the real business note here: the rewrite did not just solve a production problem, it redirected the season’s dramatic engine. Ellie and baby Isabella were OK, but Ellie and Yancy ended Season 2 apart, so any return in Season 3 would have to decide whether that split gets repaired or becomes the show’s new baseline.
