Sophie’s circumstances are obviously incredibly extreme, right? She’s lost everything. She doesn’t know who she is and she doesn’t know the circumstances under which her memory loss occurred. But this idea of looking backwards and finding different versions of yourself, as you so astutely pointed out, I think is something that we can all relate to. Thinking about myself — right now I’m older, I’m a mom. I have this show. I’m, for all intents and purposes, an “adult.”

But in the past, looking at the other versions of myself in my 20s … if you met that person on the street, would you even recognize them? Would you make the same choices that you made back then if you had it to do all over again? And I think that’s why, even though Sophie’s journey is really complicated, and it’s in this heightened escapist kind of psychological thriller, it’s still something everybody can understand, because we’ve all been through that, in a sense.

Another thing about the show is the location. It takes place in San Francisco and their house — which looks like the “Full House” home painted all black — is almost a character in itself. Did you always plan to have it in San Francisco? And did you always plan to have it play such a prominent role in the series?

Well, it’s funny that you asked. The original spec script that I wrote was set in London and Sophie was American, because I always thought there was something very interesting about crossing overseas to escape your past. What would have to go so wrong that you were willing to make that leap?

But when Gugu came on board, we thought it would be so interesting for her to play British — people were saying this show feels like a throwback to noir, and San Francisco, with the “Vertigo” connection and that timeless classic mystery that the city has. It has a soulfulness that some other major cities don’t. So having Sophie play British in San Francisco just all came together.