The Watch - The ‘Station Eleven’ Season Finale With Showrunner Patrick Somerville

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

Chris and Andy are joined by ‘Station Eleven’ showrunner Patrick Somerville to talk about the finale and season as a whole. They talk about how he came to the project (2:35), the emotions of the season finale (19:34), and why this was one of the hardest projects he has ever taken on (46:16). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Patrick Somerville Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer.com and joining me on the other line. As always is Andy Greenwald and today, a very special guest to talk about a very special television show that he created. It's Patrick Somerville. Ooh, I got the yell. I got the yell. I was about, but I was about to say, do you ever wish that someone yelled your name, Chris? Andy did it once?

And it felt weird. Yeah. It felt really weird. I think people didn't like it, you know? Do you want me to maybe Pat McAfee it? You know, McAfee might, yeah. I'll do it now. I was, I want to protect the pipes because we got to ask you a lot of questions. Yeah. Wait till I get to the middle part where I talk about my immunization. Listen, Chris, I'll do it when the right time comes. Okay. You don't need to pitch on when I'm going to do your...

Okay. Yes. Yes. Someone's still feeling the showrunner vibes. Okay. Somebody hears the Eagles creeping up behind his number one seat. That's true, actually. They have some fire those eagles and like the Packers have some vulnerabilities.

But can I speak to what Andy just said? Yeah. It's hard to shed it, the showrunner of it, isn't it? You know, like coming home and trying to do the dishes and you're trying to show run dinner time. Yeah. And it's a real thing. It's a rough,

rough reentry with regular life. But you know what really kind of, really like knocks the showrunner right out of you? It's a really spicy sandwich I recommend of marriage and a pandemic. You know what I mean? Bam. That's the ego killer. Gone.

You guys should definitely make born on the 4th of July, but about coming home from show running. Or her. You don't know what I went through, brother. I was in the shit. So much empathy for that. story, I'm sure. Patrick, I don't know if you, if you're familiar with our podcast, The Watch, but twice a week, we get it, we get it. I had a show called Maniac and then I quit for two years and

I started again. Twice a week, we extoll the virtues of the very best of television and your show station 11 was the very best of television of the year 2021 and we're so excited to talk to you about it and we're so grateful for the show you made. Well, I'm grateful for you guys, the way you watch on the watch because I think Station 11 is a show that is doesn't do quite all the normal TV things sometimes, but it does some of them. And the reason I like you guys, I think is the reason you guys like the show maybe, I think. And it has something to do with high low. I'm a big high, low guy. I don't know. And I think like I like things from any tranche of the culture, depending on how they make me feel. I also like them remix. But I think,

there's something I remember back in the leftovers days Andy you were particularly allergic to not reaching for something tough but doing it too soon in an unearned way you know like there's look at Mr. Fancy Pants show like trying to talk deep without earning it from me I think it was you always trust yeah earning the trust right yeah um so I am grateful You guys just dove in. I saw on Twitter when you said the show is number one. I literally was like they've made some kind of mistake. Like there was a second digit, like a second integer next to the one that we forgot.

What's a typo, but with like 10 words? I thought it was like this camp. But I also loved listening to you guys talk about it just because you had no idea. Like you neither of you knew anything of the stories of making it. and we've all been in our own COVID holes, but it's just like, it's translating itself very well to the outside world. The intention is getting to the audience quite well.

So to jump in, I kind of wanted to start, and obviously we're recording this after the finale has aired. We're going to talk about the entire series. We do have some questions and thoughts and reflections on the finale itself, but I think that they will be folded in like egg whites into the batter of this particular conversation. for good figurative language there appreciate that appreciate that um i want to uh kind of start at the start um i wanted to ask you specifically about your relationship with emily st john mandel and her

book which as you noted neither of us had read when it came out which makes us i don't know i'm not a minority but neutral neutral like a lot of people read this book and loved it and had very strong opinions about it um for you coming off of maniac and considering that we were already even pre-pandemic living in a fairly dystopic time. What was it about the book, your relationship to the book that made you want to devote, you know, ended up being more years than you anticipated, but to devote years of your life to this type of story, to this story? It's funny because I called Emily from my maniac trailer when we were almost done shooting

sometime in 2017, late 2017. in New York. I had heard just through my manager, I was going to go to a general with this producer. And he was like, by the way, this is the guy who got Station 11. And he said that to me because I had always been tracking. Like, what's up with that book? And I knew, because I loved it. I loved it when it came out. I knew Emily barely. I mean, we had met for a day and read together at a bookstore in the outskirts of Chicago that four people came to. We had joined four. We had joined four. in order to insulate ourselves from exactly what happened. And I got you guys will appreciate this.

Emily remembered and I had forgotten. It only said Emily St. John Mandel on the sign when we got to this store. And one of the bookstore employees came with a Sharpie and said, and Patrick Somerville wrote it into the sign and misspelled my name. It was a full on puppet show and Spinal Tap situation. And four people came. It was sort of just like the brutal life of a midlist author for both of us. And on the drive, I drove her back to O'Hare.

And on the drive, I was like, it's impossible to support a family or ever have a house or take care of a baby or anything being a writer of literary fiction, I think. Even though, like, you know, my book's coming out from Little Brown and getting reviewed in New York Times. And I'm broke. And she was like, me too. and I was like, I'm going to try to get into TV. And she said, I'm going to try writing one more novel. And she said, I just started one.

I don't know. We'll see where it goes. Two years later, I'm sitting like in the Bridge Season 2 writer's room. And I see Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel, New York Times bestseller. Like, it skyrocketing. And that was the book that she was in the middle of. So we had this kind of beautiful, weird one-day experience and both went our separate ways. But when I was in New York in that trailer, I had heard that the movie version of Station 11 was in what we call development hell.

A lot of money spent on a script that wasn't good, the rights holder or not. And I was like, I want to go have a meeting with him, Scott Seindorf, producer, Stone Village is his production company. And I went and I said, this can't be a movie. There's too many people in it that matter. Like, you can't get dimensionality from six people or eight people into a film, really, like you need. And then there's too many times in it. Also, that was my other thing I said to Scott. Like, it should be limited series.

Because in 2012, when I, or 14, when I first got here, people thought limited series were weird. I was interested. But every time I brought that up, people would be like, no, there's no money there. It's often what the town said. And then True Detective came. And it did do a seismic shift. There was a paradigm shift in our business with True Detective.

And there was another one with Fargo. There was both the anthology idea, but then I guess with Fargo, I would say you can make a movie into a show again. And it can be good. Those were big ripples. I bet you guys were feeling it, too, on this side. And then Andy, you were getting into writing then, too. But anyway, Scott was like, thank God. Because I think whatever was going on with that script was not capturing what he loved about the novel.

And my conversation with him made him feel like I could. And so we made a deal, and that deal was a deal with Paramount as well. then we kicked off our development of the show you guys just finished watching. So not to harp too much on the book because, as I said, we hadn't read it, but I did, after finishing the finale, pick it up and start reading it and was instantly kind of flabbergasted, enough that I think I texted you directly because in the book, the play happens. Arthur dies. Kirsten and Jeevan cross paths, and then they say, goodbye, and then that's it.

and Jeevan walks out into the snow and then buys groceries and goes to Frank and has his life and Kirsten is in the traveling symphony. And I was totally stunned by this. Totally stunned by this. Basically, what it meant was that you and subsequently your writer's room were responsible for inserting what emerged as the series key emotional spine into the story. And so broadly speaking, I'm curious about your relationship with adaptation and the freedom you felt to do that and to change things and to steer into the story that you want. wanted to spend your life years of your life making. But also on a very like micro level, how, why and when did you know that the series had to begin with and be about that simple act of kindness and the subsequent connection between these two strangers. It's so easy after the

facts to wrap it into sort of a mega narrative or like a macro, but it always feels like it's a good sign when you're coming upon things honestly for small reasons of problem solving and they accrue over time. So honestly, it really was like Jeevan's alone. We want to do the first episode there on the day in the Jeevan story basically, but for TV, you can't do that. He can't be alone. In interior. Yeah. You can't, there's no way to represent it. Right. Or sure, we could bend over backwards and try to innovate formally and do things. Or, you know, show it in all the ways that the tricks that we have, the objective correlative or like the terrain move. You know, there's ways, but in TV, it's like, he's got to talk to someone.

He needs a partner. It needs to be a two-hander, basically. And so, like, I think that need was there. That's often how it happens in the writer's room. There's a suction for like a want, and you don't have it yet. But then the conversation continues. And it's actually Nick Hughes in the mini room that we had at the top end. And he was like, what if Kirsten ends up in the apartment? And when people in the room, when someone says an idea like that, that's like, it's like,

like a little bomb. And then you start thinking, you're like, whoa. And then you feel it roll through the season. And you feel what happens to the frank. Jeevan story. It's not the frank and jevan story anymore. And then you you feel it all the way through to like, oh, this is the core of our show if we do this. So we came by it honestly. We needed, we needed two people to be able to. And then it's also, it's just good TV. It's just like a kid, a guy offers to walk a kid home for a good moral, he's a good guy.

and then he kind of gets stuck and then he finds out the world's ending on the way and she doesn't also have her key like he he's got to take her with and i i think like that's just a good episode there's the adventures and babysitting tower off in the end to get to and they they got a journey they got to go on but what's happening morally for jevin there was very sparkly to me as a dad but just as like as a TV watcher too, like what would you do? Well, I want to jump in on what you just said about being a dad because I think that, I feel like you've already sort of suggested the shape of your answer by saying that you felt this emerged like a rolling bomb that's going to affect everything.

You know, you can't actually solve the problem before you even know what the question of the problem is. So it's sort of useless to ask you about moments you realize what the themes of the series were going to be or what was going to emotionally land. That said, the degree to which the show is about parenting, obviously knock me flat. And to get to a point in the finale where you have a line of dialogue

that I almost can't say out loud because I found it so moving, which is when you finally do bring these two characters back together. Which, by the way, incredible flex, I was okay with them not getting back together. That's an incredible compliment. I was almost okay with the idea

that they would just miss each other at the airport. Yes, exactly. Because they were fine. And that's the way life works sometimes. And that was also what the show is teaching us. But that moment when they say to each other, I was never scared with you. And he says, I was scared all the time.

That's being apparent. You know, and that's what, especially what our lives have been for the last few years. And, you know, knowing that now hearing you say that Nick suggested one small thing that landed this gimmee Gucci Air. Did I say it, right? Gichigumi Airplane of a series. Yeah. It means big sea water in Ojibwe. Yeah, no, I knew that going in.

Tim Simons, one of my favorite lines of the whole show. It doesn't seem like a joke at all, but I love that long. But nine episodes later, that's what the soul of the show was, was very moving, but I'm also just curious how you found your way to that. Man, wouldn't it feel right if, like, you were on your deathbed and your kid said, I was never scared with you? Yeah. I would take that deal right now.

Me too. And I think what they would say is, You're a monster oftentimes. But we're scary to kids. We are. Just like raising the volume of your voice is like you turning into a T-Rex for them. It's so easy to forget it when you're at home. But I think to answer your question, I also just think about the actors when I'm thinking

about that last scene. I think I wrote that scene 70 times. And I think if that's what happens when you know you have the right scene. scene and then you're just like, it's like an opportunity to get it so right. And then they started assisting in the days leading up to the shoot of that scene. And they had the instinct that was so right, which is like, we stayed up all night and caught each other up. Yep.

And the show isn't the kind of show that does that scene, nor is it one that does the montage of them, MOS, talking to each other with music playing either. We just were like, they did that thing. But the reason we felt also skipping that is like, you know in the audience everything they have to say to each other. Yeah. That was what felt cool. We've seen it. We were there. Right.

It's the first time in the show that the now is now for both of them. There is no need for flashes now. There's no need for like editorial maneuvers to orient emotionally because we're with them subjectively completely. And that was so cool to me. I was like, this scene is different than every other scene in the show. it's also it's my favorite scene in the show by Andy I don't I've not told you that but you brought it up independently but the actors were like what we want to do they they had already kind of had their meet talk together and they like they came to me and they were sort of like here's what we uh would

like to do and it would thank god it was exactly right and I was like yes absolutely but this happens sometimes when like the actors have a meeting and then they come to you with a proposal they've already discussed. And this one was... Coach, we've decided. Yeah. And then there's a hook and ladder offense. And there's a version that we're not asking. Yeah, right. Right. Which is another thing. But McKenzie and him asked for the best. And they're so smart. They're so literary. They're so kind of writers and readers themselves.

And they were like, we want to throw it almost all away. And I was like, exactly. Good. Yes. Silence it. We want to play the silences. And we were like, not quite mumblecore, but almost more like jumping on rocks across a river. Like each one, like the yo-yo line is important. The one you said, Andy, is really important. The one that absolutely kills me is when she says you walked her home. And I wasn't there on the day that day. Our editor, David Eisenberg, just realized it yesterday while we were sitting.

And I was like, holy fuck. she when she says that she takes a beat before she says it and she looks off and i always thought um that's because she was about to start crying and she was collecting herself i think she actually is about to start crying and collecting herself but he was like no she's looking at the symphony her eye line like is she looks left toward that part that where the wagons are headed and then she says you walk that's she's looking at them and i was like oh oh my God. And then our producer, Jessica, who was there on the day, was like, yeah, that was obvious

when you're there on the day. She knew that always. It's so funny. But I didn't know that until, whatever, eight months later, emotionally it captivated me either way. But that speaks to, I think, Hamasch and McKenzie's deep conceptual understanding of the show. And that's not always true. And sometimes it's because someone's only with you a little bit.

and sometimes you've lost an actor and sometimes they don't care and sometimes they don't get it and they're doing it anyways and then sometimes they're your partners. When you talk about this show, you obviously sound very affectionate. There's a lot of warmth

in the way you talk about the characters and also about the actors. And I was wondering whether or not, you know, going into the finale and watching it, it's a very, very benevolent finale. You know, you give like a lot to these. characters in the last episode.

And was there any push-pull within the writer's room or push-pull within inside of you that was like, I want to bring Miranda back, I want to have this moment with Clark, I want to have this moment for Tyler, you know, versus what does the story need to be and what is like, what would this world actually give them, this world that we've created? You're saying like, did I ever think this is too much? Yeah. giving too much. This is breaking story law somehow by giving too much. I didn't, but I thought it, I was wondering whether that was a conversation. Yeah, for sure. Because just to give you some

context, too, like I was the kid in Dungeons and Dragons when I was DMing that gave a wish to everybody at the end of the adventure, like too much treasure. I did that all the time. Too, too powerful of magical armor. The reward is too gigantic. I think it's because I'm a giver. And I don't mean that I'm ultra generous. I mean, like, my problem is, like, when I'm on my heels, even, that's the move I'm trying to do to make people feel okay again.

We all have our moves. And it doesn't mean also you can't be generous in like a, a, a, a, a, a, true way, but like it's a move sometime. Sometimes. And in this case, I'm wary of myself as a writer, exactly the question you're asking, Chris. And so, but in this one, I was like, no, it's, you know why it's okay? All of it? Because Miranda calls a captain and says, seal the door of your plane. Sure.

To a bunch of people. And he does. and he says those people don't deserve it and she says you're right, they don't. And then just sits there and waits. They don't deserve it. It's true what she's saying and it's the most brutal truth and it also, for me, ripples into pandemic stuff.

No one deserves this. it's it's not a moral question of course not you know um but we nevertheless here it is you know like there is no explanation exactly and there there's no as often said in the show there's no rescue mission really either this is what it is hold on like get your stance right take a breath and like you're strong enough we're strong enough to do it so because that truth is that It's like tough love or something, Chris. Like it's such a brutal truth in there. I was like, it's okay.

And then the other thing I'll add after that very long answer is the post-apocalyptic genre, once I started really thinking about this genre, I was like, I'm not so sure anyone's done this. I'll just put it this way. This feels like an opportunity. If you kill billions at the top, you don't need anyone else to die. for your story. Yeah. You've,

you have, you have launched your rocket. Now do something with it. Like don't, you can't go back to that well, um, for drama. Uh,

you used it once. It was your booster. Go. So like if I always was, I think navigating with like, uh, with, with that particular knife in the sheath still.

Minus, minus the end of episode four, which is sort of a different thing. Um, and me and that one, maybe fired my radar of like, I'm not so sure in this show, but this is dangerous and we need to tell the story of danger being alive for once, at least for real. You're referring to the end of when they're at Pingtree, right? Yeah, the kids. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. I have a bunch of questions about the kindness as on display in the show, but I know Chris and I wanted to ask you specifically

about the end of four and the return of the girl with the minds in 10. Because as you may have heard say on the podcast, that was the one thing that I think that remained a little opaque to me, which was specifically Tyler's probability. Yeah. Yeah. Just basically, was that Tyler's mission or was that something that was happening outside of his sort of spirit influence? Well, I would say there's like my mind breaks into two things when this comes up to, which is like, story-wise, did we fail to clarify properly? And that's one question. And then, like, I have an answer to kind of more process-wise about the storytelling, too. Like, we had some more scenes involving Haley throughout the season that didn't make it. And Haley's the girl at the end.

Correct. That Kierston reads to. The character's name is Haley Butterscotch. Not that you would know that. It's impossible, too. Great name. But she's sort of like a. to me, like a comp for young Kirsten also. And then she played a role in episode two a bit more than ended up being in the show. And I did know there was going to be some consequences to that. And I think one of them is in six, when McKenzie has the knife to Tyler's throat, he actually sort of clarified, he answers your question, at least Chris, in part.

Or he's like, while I was fucked up because you stabbed me and I was in critical condition, one of the other kids took control of the story and started telling a different story. Haley started telling a different story. He says it there, but it's kind of, he's sort of spinning it, but it's also like there's no context for Haley. It's not just the lack of context, I think that I heard that. And so that was my answer to Chris when we were talking about this offline. I think that the issue for me was that at that point in the story, I don't know how I feel

about Tyler yet. I don't know if I trust him. Right. He might be full of shit. You're McKenzie there. Exactly. Yeah. So I held it at arm's length until, you know, he started to crack and we started to realize

where we were going and the tender of the back half of the season. But I also think here's, so that's all the, like, I wish that scene was in there because you would have listened in a different way had it been and you would have known it, but whatever. It's okay. Because my real answer, I feel like, Chris, to your question is he is not morally clean. You know, like just be. Because a person repairs with their mother does not mean they are innocent of all charges.

Oh, yeah. Right. You know what I mean? And I'm not, yeah, this is more sort of about, I don't know, when they walk away at the end, you see there's thousands of kids out there, which means what Cody said was right. The undersea is scale-wise way bigger than we may have suspected. and throughout episode 10, there was maybe an army out there with minds waiting to come in depending on what they heard from their leader. And what they heard from their leader was, we're all good.

I got my mom back. We destroyed the karaoke. It's fine. Well, I crushed it on stage. I delivered a pretty fucking insane. Danny just killed that monologue. And it makes me cry. But also, I got my mom back.

Like the kids, he's been. saying there is no before and now this guy walks out with the before uh with his arm around the before so like but it it'll be a rough tribal council i think for the under seas tonight but but like come on in guys what i was saying it's so max fisher too he's like i i was in a hit play i'm okay now but it what i think like what it means though is like this is i am such a cynical human about institutions. Like, this is how corrupt institutions get founded. That people who are not morally clean with more power than they probably know what to do

with who are human, sure, but maybe have it in them to deploy their powers for bad as well as good. He's going to start a church. He is definitely on his way to go start a church with this holy book, you know? Like, it's not going to, they're going to do this shit. again probably, it's going to recreate itself, the bad thing to the kids. You can't just say, oh, I got stabbed because you started the whole, you made the whole system. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere

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I found it especially in regards to the Jeevan storyline. I mean, this was the tender of the show overall, and I did wonder. if there was like, you know, a motto written above the writer's room door about being kind to each other, being kind to these characters, which I so appreciate it. But specifically, you know, everything about our last 10 years of watching TV has taught us to pick up certain signals and certain signs. And there is nothing in the first nine episodes of Station 11 that suggests that Jeevan is going to be blessed with anything other than, you know, maybe being torn apart by a wolf or something terrible that's lurking out there. And not just the kindness you showed the character,

but the very, very specific, trippy, almost incredibly, you know, a really beautiful needle drop of creep while a dozen women give birth in a furniture store. Seeing that you, and again, this is something I found out after the fact that you guys came up with from whole cloth, I found really really noteworthy and really notable. And I think that that ties into also what you were saying, about no one deserves this death, you know, and Miranda says it. Like there is, that is the nature of not just our lives always, but what's been brought into focus over the last few years. We don't deserve this. We got to deal with it. And sometimes the way we can deal with it is with kindness or

humor, right? And to bring that back to childbirth, and this is something I was saying on the pod last week about it. It's just like, that's something that, that I'll just use eye statements as a dude, you know, entering into parenthood. That was a sense that I had to learn and I still not very good at, which was the sense of it's coming one way or another. This baby's coming. So you could choose how you react to it, but it's not a question of whether you deserve it or you can stop it or let's pause and think about it.

You know what I mean? Like there was a... Yes, I do. There is a kindness and grace that you brought to that episode into that story that I just found so moving and noteworthy. And at the end of this monologue praising you, the question. I would like to land on is how did you get there? I guess.

How did you get there in that episode with that grace note for Jeevan in the penultimate episode where we're used to George Pelicanos killing people on the wire? That's our version of it. Baby Apocalypse is our version. Nothing says this is what's happening better than a whole bunch of doctors flying into the room where your wife is trying to deliver saying there's a problem. And we're going to intervene now. Just like, from the dad point of view, you know, that, so that happened for me personally,

and for her, I should say, for us on one of our three. And so from the dad point of view, you're just, you are like in a sea of forces that you can't control. And I think for a lot of us, especially when we go to work and this is what, whether or not this is a man thing or an us thing. It's probably about, it's like having control over the situation is a way to feel safe. And it's also an illusion, usually. And I think it's very, very good for us to acknowledge that we are less powerful

than the things around us. And we have to, we can't, you can't punch the ocean, like, you know, but you can ride it. And I think, like, on a surfboard, and I think that distinction is really, it was really good for me. These are all traumatic moments that I'm thinking of where, like, moments I realized I absolutely was a tiny being not in control of anything. It hurts. But I think I really wanted to tell a story where that idea is the idea, but it's okay. you know and i think in episode one that like thing rises up um and it's big and that's what causes

the panic attacks that jeven's having but in nine that it's that thing is rising up again um but he stands there and sort of like stays present which is exactly what mackenzie's doing in episode seven uh when she's watching the fight and and Lucy Terniak, the director of seven, did that amazing shot where she pushed over the fight, ignored it with the camera, but went right to McKenzie. And the conversation I had with McKenzie on that day was, it was that Marcus Aurelius quote, which I don't know what the actual quote is, but it's basically, it's basically look the thing in the eye. And don't run.

Like, like, and that's what Terry says to Javan and nine, too, like the courage to bear witness. it's hard to stay there and just stay. And I think so Jeevan and Kirsten are on the same arc kind of in the development of the show before they get to their hug, which is like they both need to learn that thing. Like stand and look at it. It doesn't mean you can change it. In seven, she literally is like in ghost rules cannot. But she can't go talk to herself about it. And for Jeevan, he can't save Rose at the end.

he can't but he can when she says is my baby going to die the answer is yes permanently forever for every single human being it's it's always true yes

eventually but but he for the first time looks back at her and I like I can see him as playing it he doesn't answer because he thinks like Terry's given him the nod and he thinks probably the answer yes, but there's compassion and not saying it.

And just saying, he says you're helping. You know, he's just being there, listening, being together. Like, there's really, I don't know. I think the morality of the show is getting born in there too at the end of nine or being demonstrated clearly. And I think Jeevan is being born in that scene somehow, the human we meet at the end of the episode. But this is where, you know, Andy, your question was about,

it started in sort of the dad area, but just like how scary that is, but like, stay. Acknowledge you can't do it. You don't know how. Figure out how to help. Even saying how can I help is annoying.

Figure out how you can help and do it. That's sort of what the show is trying to do. So like if that was the guiding principle, all that that I just said, like that's how it happens, I guess. So that's how you, if you,

versions of that in the different episodes. But I think it evolved from the storytelling. And then we'll talk, maybe we'll talk, the crossboard was such a mind fuck. We shot so out of order. But I think this show ends up having these like kind of more realized elements of itself earlier than usual because we had, we shot two last. We shot episode two last.

You know, like we sort of, it's a weird. spread of what we knew and when. I want to ask a little bit about texts because this is the thing that kind of I really would chew on after every episode is just thinking about the relationship of characters to the performance of Hamlet, the text of Hamlet, but also like what their kind of understanding of literature or music would have been throughout this experience. And something that Andy and I talked about last week that I wanted to get your feelings on was, you know, Station of it is kind of this malleable thing that's in these people's lives. Like we never get like a

page by page like here's what happens in this book. And it's obviously this sort of labor for Miranda, but it's these two, it means two different things to Kirsten and Tyler, although it also means the same thing. But I was wondering like, Kirsten has, I think, kind of almost like a classical education in her life. She gets to be around great works of theater and music. You made this point. It was so smart. I had never thought of it.

But I was curious, but like, what is Tyler's relationship to, like, education? And is he almost like this looking at it as like folklore and like, he went to trade school. No, but at that point when he's just like. University of life. When she's like, that's not what it says. And he's just like, eh, it doesn't matter. But she knows, she, you feel she. She's right right there, right there.

Yeah, yeah. She knows it because she's a pro, and she's an actor. She's off the book. She knows her lines. Yeah. But, and I think, though, like you hit Chris on that idea, and I had never thought of it, and I think McKenzie's playing it, but it's so right. She kind of went to, like, McAllister.

Like, she went to one of the great books schools is, I don't know of McAllister. What's that one? Like, that we know when the college it's like, we don't do anything. but you read the canon all day, every day. That's sort of what her education was, right? She's read every Shakespeare play and performed everyone and talked it out and argued about meaning. Like, she has a Western education in humanities.

And so for Tyler, it's like he has one book, not all of them, not 302 plays. He has one. and he read it compulsively as a 12-year-old and then burned it. So he only has his memory of his book. I guarantee you that's the only book he's ever read before he picks up Hamlet or watches Hamlet, I should say in two, but then reads it again in town. I don't, he has, he is a one-text person and he also is forgetting it and he's also riffing on it and changing it and he's sort of not aware of it. But I think like his comp though, Chris, is like alone in the woods. Terrified.

And like I think we know he found Rhodes. We don't know what that story was. We know he was late in coming to catch up. And he didn't get to say goodbye. And he knew enough, I think, to leave that baby. And that baby was Alex, right? That baby is Alex. Yeah, that's canon.

It's in the show. It's like there's, that's her. What's not canon or what's left to the interpretation is what Tyler knows about that. I think often the audience is ahead of the characters in our show, and that feels true here. But when he left there, he's devastated again. I think like aloneness. He's sort of educated in the kind of horrifying world of aloneness for too much, for too long, probably for years to come. He reached out and connected one person and that happened.

And so I feel like he didn't, I don't think he's talked to a grown-up again since he's taught, until Kirsten. I think he only talks to kids, really. Another kind of text that shows up in the show is the music and it's specifically the needle drops. But two songs that I responded to almost more passionately that I was prepared for was excursions in episode seven and one fine morning in episode eight, I believe. and yeah like we talked a little bit about how the Bill Callahan song acts as this almost counterbalance to such an intensely sincere emotional moment and then he's like and he is like kind of smirking about the end of the world and that actually like is like this pressure valve release but then you know the thing that everybody has kind of I think responded to is being like freezing to death in an apartment tower and reconstructing a tribe called Quest song. And Andy and I have like 400 questions about that.

But I guess it is, can you just tell us a little bit about it's got to be this song and how that came about? I mean, these are the two perfect examples to demonstrate how wildly different this can happen process-wise. Oh, by the way, you know whose voice that is, clipped up doing the beat in 107? Scott Steindorf, the producer that I went into. That's him. That's him reading a chapter of a billionaire's autobiography about revenge and the savings and loan scandal that we wrote for him. Anyways. Okay.

So excursions for me, like being from Green Bay, like that's a deeply personal, like finding hip hop when I was 13, 14, 15, to goable planets, like finding that as a kid was really deeply meaningful for me, just like for, and I love Tribe Galquest and I have since then. And when I mentioned it to Nabon, he just, he just looked at me via Zoom, of course, but Nabon has a certain piercing gaze that transcends. And he said, if I can wrap excursions, that would be the greatest thing ever. And like, he, he, he, he, he he was for him it was very meaningful as a kid i think i don't you know i could just feel it in in london and i think he's he'd been listening to that song since he was uh two i i and you can you can tell when he does it that he knows it you know what i mean like he's been practicing

for a long time so that was scripted plans prepped rehearsed uh always there uh you know but and Liza Richardson, our music supervisor, who's the best music supervisor, I think, was deeply in conversation with Alicia Hid Muhammad and just like getting that ready. That was a prepped and gigantic thing. But Liza, here's what's awesome about Liza. We didn't know what the hell we were going to do all the way to the end. And I had never heard of Bill Callahan until Liza sent me that song after a bunch that didn't work, a bunch that were almost right. but not right. We were going back to score.

I was calling Dan Romer and being like, but I knew the thing, what you're pointing out, Chris too, which is like, the balance was off tonally. Like we needed, and Liza was like,

check this out. I was like, Liza, what the fuck? Who is this? What is this? What is, and how is this possible?

This exists already because look what happens when you drop it in to the picture cut. We couldn't change picture. by then. So it's not like we cut that to... To the song, yeah. Yeah. We found it in the stage in the...

It was way too late to make a change of picture. So that just happened. The way that... And that happened, not only that, but we didn't... We just put the top of the song where the temp score was, where we needed a change when he says, I release you from the undersea. that's what happened automatically. So you can plan it and make the groove to make it work or I don't know.

And now I've been listening to Bill Callahan all of his album. Here's the other great thing. McKenzie watched eight and she was like, is this Bill Callahan? She was a real, kind of like live texting me and she was watching. And I was like, yeah, Liza just showed. And she's like, Bill, he's my favorite singer. He's my favorite musician and singer-songwriter. listened to constantly all of his music compulsively.

And she had never told me about him. Holy shit. That part, it's just like sometimes that happens. It's right because it's right. And she was like playing Bill Callan already somehow on the day. You know what I mean? So we're running out of time, which is a shame because we could talk to you about the show for hours.

And it also feels a shame to have this conversation and not say the names like Danielle Deadweiler, David Wilmot, Matilda Lawler. So many. The casting is exemplary and so... Hero Mariah. The direction by Huramariari. The tone he said. Fittanyac, Helen Shaver.

Jeremy Pettaswa. I'm going to... I'll stop. No, no, but the question I'm going to ask kind of is all of this, which is to say, as the, you know, whether you accept the mantle or the mantle was thrust upon you, as essentially the conductor of this very bizarre symphony, that stretched over, like not just years, but eras of the show, starting the show pre-pandemic, reassembling the show a year later, multiple directors, multiple cast members, some playing the same character, different timelines,

very, very different locations. How did you conduct it? How was it possible to maintain an aura of consistency in purpose, in tone, in, you know, collective goal during all? all of that. And I guess the question is basically based in looking back in hindsight now that you have accomplished that the show is done and locked and out in the world. I felt my way through it. That's the only way. You can't, you can make a schematic, you can make a big map, you can make a grid, you can write an essay, you can say what you're going to do.

But like, the only thing, the only way I know how to make shows is to feel my way through it. And it's a feeling. And that's the same in the edit. It's the same on the day. It's when we're working it out. But like, that's scary. And I think when I was younger and less experienced in TV, I was, I was afraid to say that. I was feeling my way through and I didn't know.

I didn't know the answer and I wasn't going to know until we were standing there in rehearsal. It's scary for everyone else when you're trying to be a leader. And the business forces too. But it's also scary personally. Like, what if I'm standing there and I don't know what to say? That's really, really fucking scary. There's like 30 people standing there looking at you and you're supposed to know the answer. Something about this show, man.

I just felt like I, whenever that came up, I had to. if I knew. I knew what to do. I've not, I've not experienced that before in life. There's something about this show. This is potentially an unfair question, and you can definitely punt, and you can come back on in one to six to 12 months to answer it a different way. But one of the things that was really effective about the show is that, you know, it was,

it's a limited series. And you told everything that you wanted to tell about these people, not. about the world, not about the virus, you know, but about these people in this circumstance, these theater dorks circling, you know, the Great Lakes. Some of them are dorks. Some of them are pretty cool. Andy, are you about to ask the red bandana cinematic universe question? I think they're actually, they've been gifted to the Sheridanverse. I was going to say, that feels very tailored.

No, I guess the question is, we started this conversation by saying, you know, the TV landscape has changed even as you've been in it. You know, limited series became understandable and digestible, and this was so successful as a limited series. But now we love it. Other people love it. Are people clamoring for station 12? Is there more between years 1 and 20 that interest in you?

Like, do you want to return to this? Or is that a foolish question that people ask in the way of success? The hard thing is I don't know, I don't know about the do I? It's not even do I want to. Am I capable of? of doing that again because it was too hard. Like, is my family really want to go through? I mean, I love the world we made.

There's definitely more. Like, how did Tyler meet Rose? I want to know what's the church look like that they make. Like, I'm curious about year 25 and year five and watching Matilda Lawler grow up and be 17 and play Kirsten again. Like, that's cool. I think we need a little time. The thing that I'm really curious about, though, is Miranda. and Daniel Deadwilers.

What happened in the 13 years between the time she burned down the pool house and came back to see Arthur? She had to start again. But she's been worked, like, I would watch a whole different show. Yeah. That was Daniel Deadweiler in the lead. Perhaps there is some IP out there that could contribute to that as well. We'll see what happened. But can I say one more thing, too, about that I, I've said,

I've talked about it to, in different places. So I forget, I only, it's, I'm scared to sound like a dick when I say I knew. Like, so I, I'm always care. But I actually, like, would rather say that because it's felt true. But the reason that I've been saying, or I can say that to you guys and your millions of people who fucking, is that the days I didn't know, there was someone next to me who knew on this show. There always, and there were so many days I didn't know. But there was always someone there who did, whether it was Daniel Deadweiler on day three doing the monologue at the end of three, that was day three of our shoot. Out of order, the second scene of episode three we shot when she went to the pitch in the boardroom and did that.

Danielle was the showrunner that day. McKenzie was the showrunner on all the days that I didn't know what to do. A lot of the scenes in 10. Jessica Rhodes, our producer was. was, our editor, editorial team was, there were a ton of days I didn't know. But we built such a good team.

And Helen Hwang, our costume design, Ruth Am and our production designer, there was always someone there. If I went down, someone could say this is what we're doing. That happened a lot. You can't make a show without that,

but like we had, this is a special team. There was so many people who spoke the language of the show by the end. Christopher Ryan! Patrick, man, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for making this show.

Can I come back like Esmail? Can I come just like shoot the shit? Whatever you want, the door's open. You've been busy, by the way. I have been quite, yes. I'm a veil. Yeah. We should find some spots for you on Ringer NFL.

Oh my God. Can we? You can do some divine? Day Adams propaganda. Because the thing is about Sam, like Sam just wants to come on and talk about TV. Like, that's what he wants to do. I feel like maybe you want to talk about other things. I'm going to the divisional game at Lambo in two weeks.

I'm going to mic drop right now. My grandfather is the architect of Lambeau Field. Holy shit. We have really good seats because he... I would hope so. And his firm, he... And this is so great for my grandpa, who's long... long gone, but he was a good dude.

45-yard line, section 18, row 30. So, like, outside, and he didn't do, he didn't go fancy. He went 50-yard line, Packer sideline. And it's so good. So I grew up going to Lambo. Wow. And now I'm going back. So you didn't mind all those blizzards on set.

You didn't mind. It always fucking sucks. It still fucking sucks. Yeah, that's the thing. It's awful. Winter's terrible. I appreciate that. I had.

I had showrunner. I was like, get me the heated core vest with USB battery powered heating things in. I was in full diva mode in Canada. I think that now that you have some downtime, you could do a little investigation of why the kid from Green Bay made a show in a Canadian blizzard. Like, you need the White Lotus deal. You know what I mean? Like, you need to make your next three shows at resorts. But like, has getting back into sports been like your palate cleanser?

Like to get to like. You know what's so crazy? I know we got to go. But the day we started shooting. was January 12th, two years ago. And the Packers made the NFC championship game in the last two years. I was standing, we were shooting that scene in one

when SIA is like coming around and gathering people and were realizing the scale. And we were shooting that day. And I looked over at our, not our dit, one of our guys behind me, and I saw on the iPad, it was halftime in the NFC championship game and I forgot.

I forgot that it was then. And like, you know, that's what show running does to you. You can't follow the things you love properly anymore, even your hobbies. And they lost, they got fucking destroyed in that game. It was awful. But same in Canada last year. I was busy. I barely looked up at the NFC championship game.

And like, I'm like, that's not normal, Pat. You're obsessed with the Packers. Sorry, you wouldn't want to watch Tom Brady destroy them. Yeah. Oh, man. But we got, I was like, yes, to answer your question, I love getting back to caring about the NFL. Yeah. Because like it feels like balance.

You need balance. We all do in the pandemic. But yeah, I'm paying attention this year. Well, man, thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome back any time to talk about whatever you want. And thanks again for the show. Yeah, we're stamping your platinum pass card. That's right.

I love it. All it took was the hardest thing you've ever done in your life. For three years and now you can come. shoot the shit with us. We were produced as always by Khyamette Mullen. Thanks again to Patrick Somerville for joining us for Andy and myself. We'll see you on Monday. Thanks everybody. Thanks for having me. You guys are the best.

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