The Watch - Ep. 85: 'The Andy Greenwald Podcast' With Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers

Episode Date: October 12, 2016

'Halt and Catch Fire' showrunners Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers join Andy Greenwald to discuss the show's brilliant third season and its bold play for the future. Note: This interview was conducted before 'Halt and Catch Fire' was renewed for a fourth and final season by AMC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Andy Greenwald podcast. Hello, my name is Andy Greenwald. Welcome to my podcast. Today was an exciting one. I finally got to talk to the creators and now showrunners of one of the best shows on TV in 2016 and certainly one of the most underappreciated, Halt and Catch Fire, which is on AMC, and just finished a pretty spectacular third season last night. I was really excited to talk to these guys, Christopher Cantwell and Christopher Rogers,

because when they took over the show this year, I think they took it in places that I, even I didn't expect it to go. It was really a tremendous drama. But particularly because of their journey, I definitely liked the first season but didn't love it. And then, like many critics, fell completely in love with the second season of the show. And watching that evolution, these guys are very young. They created the show off of a spec script, which is something we talked about. Watching the evolution of them as writers has been part of the pleasure of watching the evolution of the show itself.

So we got into all manner of things. if you have not seen the season three finale of Halt and Catch Fire, do yourself a favor, go see it, and then listen to this podcast, because I talked to the Chris's about everything that happened in last night's episode, some of those early developmental struggles that they had, getting the show off the ground and turning into the show they wanted to be, all sorts of things.

And we even got, in the end, some pretty fire takes about which Star Wars prequels you need to see. Can't recommend Halt and Catch Fire on AMC enough. really a rare example of a drama driven by humanity, not just by genre tropes and handguns and zombies. It is a rare throwback show that is in a very interesting way about the invention of the future. So I assume I've got mostly hauled heads on here today, and you're in for a treat. Obviously, I'm sitting here with two gentlemen named Christopher. I'm used to that. I usually do podcasts with a Christopher. Christopher Cantwell and Christopher Rogers, who are the creators, and in season three became the co-show runners of Alton Catch Fire, which I believe,

we're going to run this the day after, so I can say last night aired, it's fantastic third season finale, two-part finale. Okay, good, yeah. Congratulations on that. Thank you so much. I should warn people up at the top. We are going to talk fully, I mean, assuming you guys are on board with it. Of course. Yeah, no, that's better for us. You've seen it. About the finale. And hopefully, you know, about what might be to come, fingers crossed. First off, I'll just say that. Congratulations. This really was a terrific season. It was a really surprising season in a lot of ways. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who had his head spun around a little bit by the decisions you made in these last two episodes.

Yeah. Thanks, man. Yeah. How much of, in breaking this third season, this was your first as showrunners of the show, right. How much of this was always the plan that you wanted to do a big time jump before the season was over and how much of it was just sort of writing your way into the season and realizing you hit this beautiful crescendo in episode eight and maybe just time to pull the record and

see what happens next. We came in, Rogers and I did a weird thing where we got renewed and we went out to Joshua Tree. We rented a house, an Airbnb thing. And we were out there for three days talking about, one, how we'd run the show together. First of all, making TV sounds great. You can just tell your wives like, oh, my buddy and I were. Yeah, we're going out to the desert. We asked our wives about it.

Yeah, we felt like a third season we could be a little weird about it. So we went out to the desert, talked about how we'd run the show together, and then talked about what we wanted the season to be. And we had talked a little bit about that, just in terms of the technological landscape, when AMC was making its decision to renew. And we had come in and said, you know, this is what we want to do. And Chris and I, we looked at it, and we said, well, they get on the plane at the end of season two. Right.

And there was so much character story there. We didn't want to just leave that on the table and jump four years at the outset. We felt like that would be too much. But there was something undeniably attractive about ending season three with WWW. That just felt so cool to us. And it felt like where everything was headed, where things were pointed to in season two, and in season three. So while we were on the desert, we were like, what if we just did both?

What if we have a lot of character story? They just get to California. Let's see what's there. Let's mine there. And know at some point we're going to jump tonight. 1990, and we just, we'll see if we can earn it. And we did. And we didn't know when it was going to happen.

We didn't know it was going to be half and half or, you know, six and four or seven and three or one episode that was a finale. And ultimately, everything kind of built to a natural crescendo in eight. And so we said, well, let's do kind of a bridge episode with nine, and then ten can be that reunification, which is something else we talked about in the desert a lot. Getting everybody back together. One of the things that I love about halt and catch fire is not just, the ability to use a lot of computer metaphors in discussing it.

But quite literally, your show has had such, it's so nimble with the idea of rebooting and what that can mean and the advantages that can offer. And I always think about your show when I'm trying to grapple with this idea of the set course of TV shows. I think for a long time there was a perception that a TV show sketches out its terrain and then drills deeper. And in many ways there's a lot, you know, if there's a lot there in that land, that's a good thing.

If not, if it's a little bit dry, you're stuck there. The two of you have never seemed to subscribe to that theory, and the show has really benefited from it. You take what you want from each place, then you move on and find more things in it. Was that freedom... Did you just... I know this was your first job in TV.

Is that something you just sort of assumed you could have and then ran with it, or did you ever run up against any walls? Yeah, I mean, I think it was learned by necessity, you know, because I think the endeavor of writing a pilot is kind of this brinksmanship of, like, what is the most story you can write and leave your character out in the desert and his underwear, you know, talking into a tape recorder and then try to get them out of that corner. So, I mean,

I think we wrote the pilot from that place, you know, spent a while in the first season, and trying to figure out what the show could be. And we always kind of subscribe to that idea that you need to leave yourself, you know, in a corner with all your story told. So I actually think that's where the best stuff comes from is when you're empty and you guys have to go in and do the work. I mean, that's the juice. That's the, like, crazy exciting part. making TV. So each season we have tried to leave every single thing we had on the table. And I think in the same way that Louis C.K. has to like do his 20 minutes fresh every year. I think that keeps us in love with the process. And that's actually the part of what we enjoy

is putting yourself at that hole in seeing if you can find a way out. I mean, let's actually, just for listeners who don't even know this, talking about the specifics of the creation of the show before returning to the finale. Am I correct that this was essentially the spec pilot that you guys wrote just to potentially be staffed or to work in television, right? And this is the thing where your agents or one's agents say put all your ideas into it to show what

you want to be doing because this is going to get you a job and then it's going to go in a drawer. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. We wrote one pilot and that got us wrapped. And then they said, well, write a second once you have two samples. And so they said, write something you're passionate about because we're never going to sell it.

That's what they said. And so we wrote Halt, based on that, kind of huddle up in my office at Disney at the time because we were both working in online media and Disney and we wrote it and then they read it our agents read it and they said well we like it a lot let's just take it to three places and see what they say first before we just expose it to staffing right so they took it to HBO Showtime and AMC and Showtime just some small players no big game yeah it was like well that's cool and we went to Showtime and went to HBO and they were very gracious. We got the bottle of water. We did the general meeting. Did you validate your

parking? They validated our parking. Yeah, the HBO had that like crazy marble like Beowulf type hallway entrance. I don't even know if they're still there. But, you know, and they talk to us and they say, here's the books we have. Here are the things we working on. What are you guys working on? Well, we wrote this pilot, nothing else. And then they said, well, cool, let us know what you write next. And that's typically how those meetings go. And we thought AMC was largely going to go that way as well. They said they may want to talk to you about some of the stuff on their slate. And it was kind of the last important meeting that we had scheduled. And so we just went in there prepared to talk about halt and catch fire as long as we possibly could.

And they surprised us by putting us in a conference room. We had never been put in a conference room before. Oh, yeah, that's serious. Yeah, they just go in someone's office and you sit on their couch. And so we went into a conference room. And then three executives came in, and they all had copies of the script. And so that was a good sign. Your scripts?

Yeah, of halt. That would have been weird if they walked into the screen. Yeah, with something else. We really like these scripts. We think this show is great and it's not yours. And so we ended up talking to them for about an hour and a half just with a bunch of sound bites we had practiced. And kind of just this is like a good way to talk about this. This is our personal connection to it.

And we just stayed in there as long as possible. And our agent wrote us that night and said, don't quote me on this, but I think I might be able to sell this to them. And so then that process was, one. What, like three months until they bought this script? Something like that. How did you guys spend those three months? In Joshua Tree, I imagine, just tripping your balls off. Probably working a day job.

I mean, I feel like I remember taking some of the important calls, you know, like slunk really low in my car. You know, with like the window cracks. I wouldn't suffocate listening to my cell phone and trying to be like, yeah, yeah, we definitely see a future for Joe that spans six seasons. And I had quit. I had quit the job. We'd worked at the same place. Did you quit the day that you had that meeting? No.

Later, suckers. I quit the weekend before my wedding, which was just not a terrible idea. Because my wife went on her fellowship year. She was a grad student at SC. And so all of a sudden, we were just in a house together. So you didn't need a fixed income. You're married a grad student. We were like, let's just sit in this apartment downtown.

And so we were living in downtown L.A. And so I was kind of like, I was like the man in the field. And then you were still at Disney. And we were communicating that way. But I was just like kind of a wreck. Taking really long lunches. where it was like, hey, I need to drive to Santa Monica. I come back.

I might be a little late. I was getting fights with, like, Hari Krishna's on the street, just that were too loud outside. Everything was bothering me. But, yeah. And then it was like December 7th or 8th that they called, and they said, hey, we want it. I mean, it's, in a way, it's nice symmetry that it was AMC,

because I think AMC's arrival on the scene as a serious player in television came from taking chances on those desk versions. scripts. You know, that Matt Weiner wrote Mad Men famously to get staffed on Sopranos and to get out of Becker. Right. No, no shots at Becker, of course. You got to do what you got to do. But investing in the script that isn't supposed to be the script, you know, that was written for nothing but your own edification and your own entertainment. In many ways, you know, I mean, I think there's a version of us going to that AMC meeting in getting any kind of general on Mad Men that we would have been elated

with. You know, I remember Chris went on his honeymoon and we were supposed to get a meeting, which Jack Orman to staff on Pan Am as baby writers. And it felt like the end of the fucking world that we couldn't go to that meeting because Chris was on his honeymoon. I was like, this was it. This was my chance. I missed it. Yeah.

It was very low. Guys, the Margot Robbie stories you would have had. I know. You know, they could have a whole different two roads diverged. No, shade of Jack Oraman. No, no.

Of course. So we're talking about how, you know, you had the script. You didn't think this was going to happen in the way that it did. And then it did. And, you know, I think you know, I think you guys are familiar with my own journey with your show, which I can talk about here, which was I really liked and admired the first season, and then was blown away by what you discovered in the journey of that first season.

You know, I think in many ways it could sound like backhanded compliment, but I think it's almost more impressive to find the best version of the show in the show you're already making. You know, I think many people would make one show, the show that you're starting with, and then be like, okay, going back to the idea of being fixed in one place. But as that first season unfolded for people who watched it, you know, it became pretty clear what you had with Carrie Bichet and Mackenzie Davis as performers, but also in terms of the dynamic of the female characters and, you know, bringing them closer to the foreground over the course of that season and ultimately into the second season. Can you talk about that journey from the inside, basically, making a season, you've never made a TV show before. Now you're making this one.

Yeah, I mean, I think it was the journey of kind of us as writers and creators. I mean, I think you get your show on the air and you're just, oh, my God, what are we going to do? You know, like, how do we tell this story? We can and win a week out. But once you settle down, you start to kind of look around and say, what's working. And the way a writer's room works ideally when it's functioning at its high its level is when you hear the right idea, everybody gets really excited and it's really fun. And when you're like in the right vein, there's a lot of pitches, there's a lot of energy, there's a lot of jokes. and you have to learn to kind of trust that energy

and say like this is where the story wants to go, this is what's working, looking at the dailies and the episodes you're getting back and saying these performances are really compelling, these two are really good together. I mean, Cameron and Bosworth is something that, you know, we stuck them together

and we're like, whoa, what? That? More of that. And I really think the journey of the first season, which, you know, we do take the unpopular opinion that the first season was good too. Was us figuring out what... Never said it wasn't good. Oh, no, no, other people.

do. But most people do. But, you know, was feeling where the energy wanted to go and when it flowed kind of into this idea of mutiny and this kind of like

neon frenetic, kind of more jokey pace and this tone that kind of felt a little more like our own than us kind of aping the shows we admired the shows that made us want to do this. Feeling like we needed to be serious. Yeah, I mean,

but also in a way being guests in the house of television, right? Oh, yeah. We walked into a writer's room and it was the first time we'd ever been in a writer's room. It was on our show, but everyone around the table

had more experience than us. And it was Jonathan Liscoe was show running at that point. He had just come off Southland. He's out of the John Wells School. He now has Animal Kingdom. Zach Whedon had been on Deadwood, been on Rubicon. Jason Cahill had been writing since ER. Sopranos.

He'd been on The Sopranos. We had a playwright from Chicago, New York. Some little shares you might have heard of it. You know, Davy Waller had been on Mad Men. I mean, it was just a murderer's row of people. So we were intimidated. And so we just went in saying, rule of thumb, we got to keep an open mind.

When anybody talks to us, whether it's a writer, any idea, a production head, the studio, everybody, let's keep an open mind because they've been doing this longer than we have, and we've got to keep this thing malleable so that we can find it. Yeah. And I think that's served us well. Yeah, and I think by the end of the first season, the show kind of became its own thing and stepped out of the shadow of kind of the things it was inspired by in that. We've tried to listen to that, you know, because that just felt good to us.

do. Well, the other thing is that it makes sense that you guys would begin to identify more with the youthful energy of Cameron's character than necessarily the, you know, Joe McMillan comes in trying to pass in a way in a much more grown-up, established world, which you could maybe draw some parallels there as well, but realizing that the energy that you guys could relate to, and it was more exciting, was coming from a little bit elsewhere on the script. But again, you built adaptability into your project. There was the possibility to do that. And the thing that really clicked for me was the realization at the end of this first season that the show wasn't really about aping the past or giving us a window into the past.

It was about the struggle to invent the future, which is a very, very different thing and a very difficult thing to communicate, but something that you guys really were able to steer into. So much so that there's a great line from the finale, you know, the line that the whole world conspires to keep that from happening, basically. this season I found particularly moving because you realize being a visionary is rare but not that hard. Enacting the vision is what's hard. It takes money, it takes patience,

it takes a lot of personal sacrifice and pain. And that was a really remarkable sweet spot to put your show in because that's not something that we often see expressed in, I was going to say, in TV, but in art, really. I mean, it's a very abstract concept, but this is kind of, am I hitting something here like this is yeah i think that you know it's it's funny and you know what else is what we like is

in the finale uh of this season cameron even calls out the fact that they've been saying the word future so much it's a bribe it's a bribe you know like she's like i'm so sick of hearing about the future and and i think that but that's that's what keeps the characters going that's what keeps them moving forward and i think that gives the show even when these people are doing incredible emotional or psychological violence to each other um and innocence and a hope that you you might not find in in another show that that that can take things super dark and super nihilistic where we're you know it almost feels it's present day but it feels post apocalyptic in tone where it's just like we're all dead you know like our characters are not there yet you know they might be in 30 35 years but um you know

it's nice to stay in a time where they can well they're all they're all gatsby's like they all believe tomorrow they will reach out their arms farther you know tomorrow it'll work where it didn't work today and they keep buying back in and i mean i think we love people that do that despite their setbacks personal and emotional. And, you know, I think that's what it is to, I mean, they're artists, too. That's what it is to create art, I think, is to never be content with what you've done and to always think there's a better version of it to do. Well, one of the things that perplexed me at first was that you had chosen to set the show in,

more or less in our universe, where Steve Jobs is real, where Microsoft is real, these things were happening. It almost took me until this last season, almost until the finale, to really get walloped by why I think maybe you did that, which was, mutiny couldn't succeed. You know, mutiny isn't going to suddenly turn into America online.

We don't use mutiny. Right, that's the thing. And I was like, are they doing an alternate universe where these guys invent the future? But it's not that. All of a sudden, there's this extra layer of melancholy

and sadness baked into it where they did know. They could see it, but they weren't those people. They didn't have that luck, that moment. You know, it's, because it's our universe, we couldn't, they couldn't be those people.

And I think that's heartbreaking. That idea of history is being written by the winners. You know, I think, and technology is just one field that is littered with the failings and trials and tribulations of people who did get their first or second or better or in a different way but had other problems or conflicts that didn't resolve in time for them to get to the place to the precipice and stand there next to Steve Jobs or in front of Steve Jobs. And those types of characters, you know, you could call them losers, are fascinating to us. You know, I think that, you know, that word is pejorative a lot of the time. But it is such a human story for all of us. You know what I mean? And I think that, you know, it's much more complex and it's not so black and white, you know,

in terms of these people all at the same time groping around in the ether and in the dark looking for something and finding maybe half of it or all of it, but just not being able to hold on to. to it. Well, also, you have this divide that appears by the end of the third season that the quote unquote artists or visionaries of your main cast, Cameron and Joe, are right. They are constantly right, but they mess things up and get it so wrong. The workers, I don't know what else to call them, Gordon and Donna are, you won't get to the sense from this finale, season finale, especially Donna. Like, Donna's good. She's fine. She has succeeded. And you've given that character such, you know, of such a depth and humanity that we feel good about and we are aware of who she is now versus

who she was before, but she's not great. I'm putting that in quotes. You know, she won't have, they won't be magazine articles written about her. There won't be Aaron's store conscripted biopics written about her potential. I'll think you never know. Sure. And allowing them, allowing all the characters to be fully human in that way, but having that divide between what they want to accomplish and what they screw up in their own lives.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, and I think the truth of all of these characters is that nobody is ever purely a visionary all the time. Yeah. Sometimes they're assholes, too. Frequently, you know, and I think it's, you know, as Chris was kind of saying, history is cliff notes written by kind of the loudest winners, you know, and so we've always kind of felt like there was a story to tell on the cracks of that. You know, and so what makes somebody like Joe, who is wrong a lot of the time,

who can't do a lot of the technical things, Donna can do kind of seen as one of the visionary characters. characters on the show is a persistence and an ability to kind of learn and evolve and change. And I think what was so satisfying with this third season is we've seen the backstory of these people that brought them to now. You know, in the pilot, we're asking you to accept their backstories, which you haven't got to be on the ride for. And, you know, one of the great joys of the season was seeing Donna kind of step into the fact that she might be great at this, you know, that maybe she should be shooting higher,

that she aspires to things. So who's to say Donna couldn't work her way into visionary systems? Wait, let me be clear. There is, other than you guys, there is no bigger Donna fan. This is a real generational divide, though, I find, because I have found that older fans of the show are like, that Cameron is just so annoying, and everyone's trying to get stuff down. And look at her hair.

Wait, really? My parents, my parents' friends. My parents are tired to Palm Springs, and they're like, I hope Cameron figures out her hair this season. I'm like, Jesus, what? She looks great. You know what I mean? It's like, also she's brilliant.

She's smarter than you. Either you identify with, like, Cameron as, like, the upstart rebel trying to keep, you know, the soul of things, where you identify with Donna as like the pragmatist that's just trying to get things done while Cameron is strident. I don't think I'm expressing exactly the way I should, but one of the real pleasures of the show

is that they are neither one nor the other. Yes, exactly. And this comes from the writing. But I think it also, maybe you could speak about this too, but so much comes from performance as well. And one of the things that I was blown away by, I mean, McKenzie's performance throughout the series blows me away, but particularly in these final two episodes

after the time jump, she is a different person, but she's very much the same person. And she has been able to throw, throughout the arc that you've written for her, be the sort of naive, idealistic, antisocial, awkward punk that maybe the parents are responding to. That's what I think it is. But she's also very much a young human woman, you know, and is fully aware and fully present in that.

And, you know, you didn't treat the marriage as a joke, as a one-off, which was really gratifying to see. And so when she comes back, she's, quote-unquote, comes back. I mean, you probably filmed that episode a week after the one before it. But the point being, she has different hair. Yes. But she is living or exuding the experience that has happened in the interviewing four years, which is a pretty neat trick. Yeah, I think she's exceptionally talented in that way and can bring something like that to her.

And they all were very interested in what happened to them in four years, you know? And I think that because it's longer than they've actually known each other in the series that the time jump happens. You know, and the same is true for Carrie. I mean, you know, with Carrie, you know, even through the time jump and, and, you know, right before, something that we talk about in the writer's room and something that Chris said that stuck with me is that you, the one kind of Achilles heel was someone, anyone, is that you want to go back and fix the past. Where did you mess up?

You know, and I think that that's in Donna's head. And, you know, she had some antagonistic qualities this season and some adversarial qualities, but the way Carrie wrapped her head around it, which I loved was she is just, she wants to prove that she can do this just as well as anybody else in that in that group and and i think even by the finale it's not she was she wanted to play that schism between her and camera and that final schism as not man i'm going to destroy you this is revenge it's like no watch this like i can do this without you and it's really she's really stepping off the cliff there at the end you know she makes that phone call and and and leaves the parking lot and it's really that's been her journey

this whole time, which is, I'm not going to be the person in the background. I'm going to do this. How much were you aware of, in the writing and the conception of the series, of the established TV tropes that you were so wonderfully playing off of and defeating? To say that, you know, the wife on a prestige drama is the fun crusher, is the foil. Donna, the development of Donna in particular is really, I think, meaningful and wonderful to watch because she is nobody's foil, especially by the end. You know, she's not just the business brains behind Cameron anymore. She's not just Gordon's wife.

She's not just Joni's mother, which is a handful. She is completely her own woman and her own protagonist on this story going forward. Yeah, a ton. I mean, because, you know, I think we're both in our early 30s, you know, so the shows that made us want to do this are kind of those great, difficult men shows that are about Tony Soprano. and Don Draper and anti-hero is kind of in that mold. But, you know, if they do have a flaw, some of them,

it is that the wife is an accessory to, you know, and often an obstacle to the fun that the husband is trying to have. And so we felt an opportunity and a responsibility to come in and not kind of waste the incredible talent we had in Carrie Bichet especially. So we're thrilled to kind of be of that wave. You know, we, in casting Carrie for the part, assured her that Donna was always going to be more. and we wanted to write her as more,

and hopefully we kind of kept true to that from the pilot on, that scene where she does the speak and spell is still one. We ceded the fact that she's an engineer in the pilot. And that was a key in that pilot. I feel like that's a scene that maybe could have been noted out of it or something. Totally. But I mean, that's what's cool about making TV right now is that it really does feel like you can try to explode the things that have come before.

You really need to use every character you have. It's very hard to write from a place of a moral or a, or a position that you take on representation, but at the same time, if you just treat all your characters like real people with valid opinions, then, you know, it's hard to mess up. And I think in order to explode those archetypes,

we had to start with them a little bit, you know? Like we... Sure. And I think that the performances of the actors really informed that. You know, I think that Lee coming in as Joe, he brought a fragility and a humanity that was kind of simmering underneath the surface.

It wasn't just the normal cipher, like, what's going on with this guy? I think what we responded to and what we tried to write to was that there was a lot more and that he was wearing that suit and he was trying, he was dawning this persona because underneath was something that I think we see much more of in season three,

which is this, he's pretty strange. You know, he's like a pretty eccentric guy that's just, he's on a different level and doesn't really know how to connect. You know, and I think that that's really important. Same thing is true with John Bosworth.

You know, Toby Huss brought something to that character that was completely different. And you know, And then you look at Scoot McNary where it's like, oh, you think this guy's going to get out of the cubicle and he's going to live at large. He's going to get to the top. But there's something going on completely different with Gordon, you know, and I don't think Gordon's even figured it out yet. I got to say, I think my favorite, LePace in the two-part finale is my favorite Joe that we've seen. Oh, good.

I think that he's awesome, especially in the first part when he goes to Comdex and there's a brightness and a freedom to him there. And of course, that's the context. You know, he's undercover. He's there for one reason and one reason alone. but his performance really clicked for me in a remarkable way in that scene because, as you're saying, we're seeing a person that has been there

but buried beneath a number of different layers. Specifically, that idea of them being archetypes early on, you know, you guys are aware of the criticism and the shorthand early on where people were like, oh, well, it's Don Draper and Walter White in the garage, basically. There are types that we've seen before. Sure, sure, sure. It did not end up that way whatsoever.

But what was it like internally, within the show as you began to change the balance on the playing field where the, where Lee and Skut were doing one thing in the foreground and then, especially in the second season, it sort of shifted. They were more in the background of the primary plot. What was that like working your actors through that? Because, you know, you sign on to a show. You don't know what the show is going to be. It could be a two-year journey, a seven-year journey.

How were they with those changes? I think people, you know, the perception is that that was more of a conscious shift than it was. I think we just tried to continue to write what we felt were compelling and earned stories for each of those characters based on where we left them in season one. And it ended up portioning out a little more towards mutiny. I mean, we got tremendous credit in the press for rebalancing the show or rebooting the show around the women. But I don't think we ever sat down and said this is what we have to do. I think, again, it kind of speaks to the fun and energy we're having. You know, Lee, I'm thrilled he's kind of getting the credit he deserves.

this year because I think his performance has always been under the most scrutiny. He's a leading man. He's got, you know, there's chops in that jaw, and he's the guy who was on the poster that everyone knew at the beginning of the show. But, you know, I think he's turned in a very kind of subtly brilliant evolution for this guy culminating, and kind of the finale we'll have seen last night if we're using Future Talk. Yeah. So, you know, we didn't have to kind of sit anyone down and kind of work through their feelings on page count because I think everyone just kind of bought into the idea and as long as the scripts are good and you're open and, you know, we luckily don't have those actors that call you up and say, you know, where's my big scene? When do I

cry? Or if they do, you just send them to the other Chris. Yes. Oh, you're actually, you want, Chris Rogers. He's extension. I think, like, for, there were a few key things that the actors brought to the characters that we, that spoke to us, that I think we wanted, you know, no matter how much we changed their stories, we wanted to remain true to. I think early on in season one, Lee said something that I loved, which was that Joe is a zealot. He believes in this stuff. He loves it. It drives him.

He's not a snake oil salesman. He's not a liar. I mean, he'll lie to get what he wants, but it's a means to an end. He believes he knows what's better for everyone else, even if they disagree. And that became, I feel like, a central tenet of writing that character, even in season two, where he's really kind of down in the dumps. for a while and really clawing his way back and, you know, trying to be a human being in this kind of conscious way. You know, Scoot, you know, talk to me a lot about, and Chris, a lot about, you know, the fact that he wants to provide for his family, that he is an unlikely father figure, that he

sees Gordon in this way. And I think that we were able to really exploit that in, in season three, with first the mutiny coders and then the way he connects with other people. The way he connects with Cameron. And I think that he's a guy that, and then also for me, you know, he has the most trouble maintaining his connections. Like he's literally in one episode in season three, like the plug keeps falling out from his ham radio and he's got to tape it there. He's in the closet trying to talk to anybody.

And he just like the plug keeps falling out. Like he cannot. And in season two, we said, you're going to spend. this season entirely disconnected. And luckily we've got an actor in Scoot McNary where he can pull something like that off. His performance is really, I think it's in many ways it flies under the radar because he's willing to go to places that are unpleasant. Physically, verbally. He doesn't make it easy to watch Gordon when he's having his medical issues, when he's saying things, intemperate things, let's say, when he's behaving in ways that he shouldn't. He is 1,000% committed.

And I think I've appreciated that more even on rewatching. I mean, I obviously know he's a strong actor, but you see the work that he's doing, it is not a showy performance. It's just a fully present performance. And he invites that. I mean, I remember him saying, so we sit down with each of the actors before the season starts. We have them come into the writer room and, if necessary, kind of meet new writers. Our season three staff was entirely new. That's when you hold their hands. That is when we hold their hands. But, you know, we have them tell us, you know, what do you think about the character? You know, what do you think the character thinks about this? You know, and we really kind of try to gauge where they are because they all, you know,

They all live it. They all own these characters. They have an ownership and they have a voice and what happens to them that matters to us. And I remember going into the second season, him saying, load Gordon up with problems because Gordon can handle it. And I want to, you know,

I want to be Gordon and kind of do those things. And I think that's so true about Scoot. So, you know, Gordon, the universe is not kind too frequently. There's a lot of like, oh, Gordon. But I just think he shines in those moments. And I think there's like kind of a beauty in the way he struggles. and so much of that is scoot

and who he thinks that character is and who he's allowed us to make that character. I think my favorite moment of the season was in the second to last episode and it's at Comdex when there is an impromptu dance party to the pixie song, Gloria. Music, by the way, throughout.

We could do a whole podcast on that. It's tremendous. But that scene, you know, there's just a deep humanity and joy in that moment that the characters are experiencing and then as a viewer I was experiencing as well. And it made me think about something that I've often reflected on in watching your show, which is all you have really to play with, I mean, we have computer metaphors and I enjoy those,

but all you have is the humanity of these characters. Yes. You do not have guns to fall back on. You do not have genre tropes to fall back on. You cannot ratchet up the stakes by having, you know, a dragon fly in. I imagine that makes it more rewarding, but also enormously more challenging. Is that accurate? Absolutely.

I think that it's, but that's, I think there's a joy in that challenge for us. I mean, I think in that scene you're talking about, um, directed by Chris Campbell. I had the privilege of directing that scene. Um, I think one reason why that scene is so much fun is because we made, I think, McKenzie and Lee do it seven or eight times. So they're exhausted. And like a little pissed off at me, you know, like, just like, yeah, let's do it again. So they're just sweaty, but like, that's what helps with the energy.

And, uh, you know, it, it's really, it's really the humanity of the characters. And it's the stable of actors. It's like we know, we have the luxury of knowing that we can write anything for these five. And then some of our guest stars that come in and they can do it. They can pull it off. And for us, that moment of, we, the big goal for Joe this season was to make him a human being. Let's finally get him there.

Let's make him a human being. And we really put him through some tough stuff with Ryan. you know, this season and have him be kind of at the top but dim inside and then reignited. And we talked about this in the writer's room that Joe becomes dangerous when his passion is reignited because he is that zealot. And he does play a fast and loose game. And we do see a real casualty of that. And we wanted that for him to finally take him to that place.

I think that it's two seasons long for probably both him and Gordon. starting at the beginning of season two, where they're both kind of in these torture boxes, you know, almost being punished for their hubris of season one, that they crawl themselves, they crawl out of the basement into their lives

and discover something new about themselves. And I think that you see new people in episode nine. Well, and I think to your question about the guns of it all, too, I mean, when we allow ourselves to be proud about things, We're incredibly proud about the fact that there are no guns in the show and that characters have to convince other characters to do other things with their wits and their words. It seems like an obstacle that you can't just manufacture drama out of the circumstance changing dramatically in somebody's life being at risk, but it's actually, I think, a huge gift to us

because it keeps us very honest and makes us double down on a character every time. I'm grateful for that, not only because it's, I think, a statement we want to make about art. that art doesn't need to just be the chronicling of violent events by violent people. And nor does television, although it's increasingly used that. Yeah, but I think it makes us better writers. Well, it leads to scenes like the mutiny breakup scene in the conference room, which is a high point of TV for the year for me. Oh, thank you very much.

But you can't make that scene without the six episodes that preceded it. I mean, you have to do the slow build. We should do a couple plot points before I let you go. you broke up Gordon and Donna. We did. That's a tough one. Yeah, that is a tough one. Can you tell me about the thinking behind it and also, well, I'll leave it at that.

I mean, we clearly saw cracks in the relationship, so it was not a surprise, but it was a surprise that you yada yadaed us right into it. Yeah, and I think that the yada yada of it was the fun part. And I think we did that with mutiny too. We kind of yada yada and mutiny out of existence in this kind of slow atrophy to use Chris's words. The time gap could have been the fourth season. season. And I wondered it from a minute when I was watching it, whether, you know, I hadn't heard any news because you were ending the show and you just basically did your fourth season in two episodes. Which, by the way, kudos. That was impressive. I mean, hey, you know, we can do that. For us, you know, we talk about there's a binary quality to some storytelling elements that you can fall into. Oh, Gordon and Donna are mad at each other. Gordon and Donna are doing great. Cameron and Donna are mad at each other.

Cameron and Donna are doing great. How can you evolve those relationships? And the divorce didn't feel like, it didn't feel like shutting down of Gordon and Donna. It felt like now we can take them somewhere completely different. And I think that just by having, just by feeling that, you know, I think there's a couple scenes, you know, in nine and in ten between the two of them where the dynamic is now different. And there, it's complicated. Yes, it's tempting to slip back. And it was something that we also wanted to avoid.

in the finale. We didn't want them to just like just fall right back to each other. But now they're in a completely different part of their life. And it's super complicated between two people who can be amicably divorced. Yeah. And yet have all of this history personally, professionally. What does that do to them now? So now it feels like it just opened up a new road for us.

How was the experience? You've had a pretty unique journey. You created the show. were paired with Jonathan Liscoe is a more experienced showrunner who worked with you guys for two seasons before going off to Animal Kingdom you then were able to take over the show

as showrunners yourself in year three how was the transition you know as a viewer it was seamless you know everything that was good about season two I think was even improved upon in season three what lessons did you learn from that sort of odd apprenticeship of you were into what you turned into this year

yeah I mean I think a lot of there's this quote Bill Gates and Bomber gave about when Microsoft was kind of indebted to IBM when they were doing an operating system for them where they say they were just trying to ride the bear. They were just trying to stay on that thing

for as long as possible until it turned around and ate them. And I think when we started this process, we were just trying to like stay on the show. You know, we wrote it, it's not uncommon that a network will buy a show and kind of hand it to a more experienced showrunner and say, hey, it was nice to meet you guys, you know, look forward to those checks.

So we just wanted to stay on this show from the beginning, and we had the great fortune to be paired with John Liscoe, who, again, is this veteran showrunner, kind of coming out of the John Wells School, and we run his offense. I mean, he, writers' rooms are so often, people don't know this, kind of these abusive, scary places to work, and that, you know, everybody's very vulnerable in pitching ideas.

But John Liscoe's thing is we're going to spend all of our time in the room. We are going to listen to every idea. We're going to make everybody feel heard, and we are going to be good people while we do it. And if we hadn't got to watch that for a year, I'd say participate even more in the second year, you know, make all those decisions kind of as a triumvirate, I don't think we'd have been ready to do this in a third year. So while it was thrilling to, you know, be able to get it exactly how we wanted it in the third year, kind of closed that feedback loop so that it was just us, kind of our mind-milled,

we owe a huge debt to that guy. And, you know, it was really like a master class in how to do this. So each year has been, I think, a little more creatively fulfilling. in terms of getting to make the specifics exactly to order. But, you know, it's been a hell of a ride, and I think that bear would have eaten us a lot earlier if John Lysko hadn't been there to protect us. Much like with season two, season three ends in a place

that could be a series finale. I hope that it's not, but it could be. As of now being next week, but officially on the record as of now, you don't know about a renewal, you're hoping for renewal. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's where we always are. I mean, I think it's people, people really like the show. Very few people watch it. And there is the rub, you know. And so the network kind of takes that into consideration and thus far has been very supportive. But we write the ends of all of our seasons like they could end the story. Not just because of the situation that our show is uniquely in, but just because it's satisfying for me as a TV viewer to have a finale that gives you a kind of catharsis. with some threads of like, well, that could, you could go somewhere there.

You could, and it doesn't just feel like an epilogue or a just a straight cliffhanger where you're like, well, I'll never know what happened to X character. Yeah. Until 26 years from now, showtime reboots it or whatever. Right, exactly. When Dale Cooper emerges from the Black Lodge. You know, I threw that out there and I hope it would get. Oh, no, no, dude, you got the right guy. I mean, my son is named after Dale Cooper.

So my son is Cooper can't well. Wow. Okay. When we do the Twin Peaks pot, you're coming back for that. I'm coming back. Yes. Yeah, but I do wonder how it feels to have your show be in many ways a poster child for this new TV economy. And I use the show as an example a lot when I'm talking about it, which is, as you alluded to, the ratings are not robust.

They're not great. But AMC has ownership in the show, believes in the show, and believes that what the show does offer, which is tremendous quality and creativity and performances has value. And critical buzz now as well, that has value. How you monetize that value and, you know, that's not your concern. thankfully. But it does seem to be a situation where hopefully it continues, where AMC is saying this has value to let these people tell the story because it will continue to find a new audience. So in a way they're programming for the future, not unlike. I won't do it, but I did walk into it. Is it, is it, do you have to spend any time thinking about that odd

sort of predicament or is it just, it's weird, it's above your pay grade? It's a gift not to have to all that much. Yeah. I think we've learned. learned in the name of sanity to manage the parts of it weak in control, which is the quality of the writing, and out from that springs the quality of the show. But I think we're very lucky to exist in this era where there kind of are no longer those big consensus hits like the Sopranos. There was a moment when everybody was turning on their TV on Sunday night to see what happened live. And that moment is largely over for shows that aren't the Walking Dead or Game of Thrones where characters could be killed off and you could have that spoiled for you. So I think you're

going to see it all in the networks right now, especially the moment. that kind of ad-supported networks, that live viewership is drastically down on every show they have, which makes the plus threes or plus sevens, as they call like the DVRs, all that much more important in terms of, and then the streaming stuff too. You know, it gives you a sound bite that you can use in moments like this. What that actually means for your creative process is that you just say thank you and keep going back to your network and saying, well, keep trying to make it good, we're sorry. It reminds me of, my dad is going to love that I bring this up,

It reminds me of the tech bubble in 99. My dad was like, put your money in mutual funds. You're going to make 12% a year. Why would you put your money in a checking account or a savings account make a half percent, 1%. You're going to make 12% a year for the rest of your life on your money in a mutual fund. Now I asked my dad about this the other day and he was like, you just want to stay ahead of inflation.

You just want to say, your money will be worth the same. Just stay ahead of inflation. That's all you want. And I feel like television, similar situation where it's like show profitable. Yeah. You know, it's almost like the George, Bailey savings alone where it's like one dollar let me go forth and multiply and they put it in the bank so I feel like if we stay profitable you know which is not up to us like it's up to you know

the the gurus over there at the network they can they can work those numbers and you know we're doing our job creatively so that's that's where we got to leave it and then finally before I let you guys go I need to get your official opinion on this because as you may know especially on Twitter, I have gotten very, very involved in a number of situations trying to get people to watch your show. I need to know, from the creators of Halt and Catch Fire, please, you know, honestly as you can, do you have to have to watch the first season? What does that even mean?

We cannot be objective about this because we have to love all of our children. But you understand why? But the reason I'm saying is because I do feel like completism is killing fan engagement on some level. And so people look it in and they're like, well, there's 30 hours of it. And I, I, these, these, these, these, these, like, these reviews that come out, you know, that are a little bit more stringent with season one, um, you know, they're tough because like, it's a, it's a great glowing review of season two, season three, season three of season. Always. Yeah. And it's like, and it's like, we talked about peak TV and there's so much TV right now, right? And you can watch anything. I could watch, I mean, I'm working my way through the, the Rockford files. Like, we're up against season three of Cheers. Like, like, we're up, like, everything. And so. And so. If someone comes to you and you're at a restaurant and they say, boy, the New York strip we have is incredible. And we got this incredible asparagus that we did that we cooked. It just gets glazed.

It's delicious as well. The baked potato tastes like shit for half of it. Are you going to order that? You know what I mean? When the menu is literally infinitely long, like it's literally infinitely long. And so I feel like... There's also sushi at the restaurant. And Korean barbecue.

And you can go across the street. And that's more of a bar place. It's owned by the same guy. But they got the same menu, but just more of the appetizers. And it'll get you drunk, but you'll feel bad in the morning. Exactly. There's dragon steak. There's zombie sirloin.

There's so many things. And then there's the broadcast network. Speak easy. So I just like, I think, look, I think the, do you have to watch season one? Look, live your own life. Do what you want to do. You know what I mean? Chase your bliss.

Do what you want to do, man. Like, watch it out of order. You know, like, watch it on your phone. That's interesting. Maybe there's like a like a, like a. Star Wars weird order. Oh yeah, like you watch a show in. I actually think that's possible.

I think that is, too, now that you imagine. Because you talked about how you had the backstory that you had to trust and, you know, built into the first season. My point is only I want more people to watch Hollywood Catch Fire and I want them to immediately love it. And when the question is, do I need to? Yeah. Well, first of all, exactly what you said. Yeah. You don't need to do anything.

Like, it's television. It's not homework. And if you feel like it's homework, you are not going to enjoy the experience. Yes. If you start with season two, love it as you should. Of course you will go back and watch season one, because it's more time with your friends. It's kind of like the machete order.

It's like you watch New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, then you do Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Shiff, and then you do Jedi. It's a bad analogy because you just don't, I think. What? You just don't do attack of the clones? You just don't do attack of the clones? I thought it was you drop Phantom Menace.

The Machete order is you drop Phantom, like you pretend, Phantom Menace never happened. I'm fine with that. You do two and three. You do two and three, and then you do Return of the Jedi. It is, but to your other point, it is unfair. The season one of Paul and Catch Fire is not a bad TV show. There are other things out there that I feel like, you know, it's like, we didn't kill anybody.

It is very easy to make a review oppositional, having done it. You want to say this is good because it was and you want to suggest growth and whatever. Also, because even when writing it, you want to show people that you're paying attention, and you want to have a narrative to your own piece. Yes. I think you could probably, you're not wrong in that this show's maturation, I think, in terms of it's the critical response has had a lot of. lot to do with our maturation, and I will acknowledge that there's a period in the first season

where I think we are trying to figure out what the show is. Yeah, what the hell are doing? Really trying to land the tone, and that is concentrated at the front end of the first season, and I think people do show up, feel that, and some of them leave, and that is a shame. So, I mean, you're not wrong. In general, embarking on a TV show is, getting in a car with someone, and you don't know who the driver is, and you don't know where you're going. And if you, you know, with something, if you trust the person, if it's a driver you've met with, we've driven with before you, maybe you'll relax a little bit. If it's been, if it's been, based on pre-existing material, you can relax because you know where it's going a little bit down the road.

It's a journey. And I think I would say this too for people, I'm assuming everyone listening right now has watched your show all the seasons. But even if they weren't, I would recommend watching all of the seasons of called and catch fire as a TV fan. This means a lot. No, but I mean it, though, but as a TV fan to literally see what we're talking about. To see people experimenting with a medium, struggling with a medium, taking advantage of the medium, learning from it. Yeah. I mean, part of the reason why I like TV in general is that fluidity.

and that learning curve and the fact that you can do repairs on the sports car while it's racing around the track. Yeah, I think that that's, I mean, that that is true. I mean, you can actually watch an evolution, I think, with our show. And I think for me when it clicks, and I remembered this in the edit room, like for me when it clicks, is literally at the halfway point in season one. It's when Joe takes a sledgehammer to a car and goes insane on a car at a company barbecue. And he shares an electric look with, with cameras. and we had this great Steve Miller needle drop.

And I was like, oh, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's the show. And I think we like, then you kind of try to reel that thing in, and then you get it and you build upon it. But I think that it, you see us try to get there. It takes a couple episodes. So to sum up, you have to watch Halt and Catch Fire. You don't have to watch the Phantom Menace. Yeah.

It's a pretty hot take. You don't have to understand the name of the show. Yeah. It is not part of the Hunger Games trilogy. But if you can plug this into Netflix, if you can find it and catch up, we promise you won't be sorry. Christopher's Cantwell and Rogers, like the Attorneys General. I like that. Yeah, that's good. Thanks for being here. Thank you very much.