Authentic is a word that gets tossed around a lot, but Somebody Somewhere earned that adjective. Its three-season run ended Sunday night with a finale that centered the series’ two core relationships: the twin-flame friendship between Sam (Bridget Everett) and Joel (Jeff Hiller), and the occasionally prickly bond between Sam and her sister Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison). In both dynamics, Sam, who began the first season struggling with the death of her younger sister Holly and insecure about putting herself out there, proves she has evolved into someone who’s willing to show her full self to others and can serve as support for the people she loves. As is always the case on this show, every scene that Everett, Hiller, and/or Garrison share brims over with the sense that they are real people talking through their real feelings in real time.
Perhaps that’s because Everett knew Hiller and Garrison for years before they played kindred spirits on HBO. Hiller, a fixture on the New York City improv circuit, moved in the same circles as cabaret performer and comedian Everett, while Garrison was her roommate for nearly a decade in the 2000s. Their concern going into Somebody Somewhere, in fact, was whether they could perform opposite each other without it getting, well, weird. “We had never acted together,†Garrison explains, “and if I get really nervous or scared, I start giggling. I was worried I was going to just giggle.†The reality was just the opposite. “Some of the most seamless acting experiences I’ve ever had were working with Bridget,†she says.
There weren’t any teary, meaningful good-byes on set, though, because when production wrapped in March, the creators, cast, and crew didn’t yet know that season three would be their last. HBO announced in August it would not pick up Somebody Somewhere for a fourth season, so Everett, Hiller, and Garrrison are battling all five stages of grief as they cope with the end of the series. “I’m not even acknowledging that it’s a finale of any kind,†Garrison says. (That’s stage one: denial.)
One of the things I love about the show, and it’s highlighted in the scene where Joel tells Sam that she’s his person, is that society teaches us that your romantic partner is supposed to be your everything, and you’re supposed to get everything you could possibly want out of that relationship. But this show says, “Maybe the person who gets you the most is your best friend.†This scene was such a great expression of that. What do you guys remember about shooting it?
Bridget Everett: To me, that scene is the series. Everything is leading up to Joel saying that to Sam: “I think you’re my person.†That is what she’s been waiting for. It’s exactly what you’re talking about, that friendship can be the center of your life. Of course, romantic relationships are very important, but for these two people, it’s their friendship. That is what is at the center for them. I remember we were shooting it and I could see somebody moving around on set and I was upset. I was keeping my cool, but I knew exactly what I wanted that scene to feel like, to look like, to be, and I did not want anybody moving the fuck around while we were trying to get it right. I was like, “Everybody stop moving.â€
I think Lennon Parham, who was directing, came in and was like, “Don’t get to the emotion right away. Don’t know where you’re landing at the start.†So we recalibrated and it just sort of found its way there. I cry every time I watch it. It’s perfect Sam and Joel, it’s perfect Somebody Somewhere. It says exactly what I wanted it to say.
Jeff Hiller: And I love that they’re in the car, because so many of their deep conversations happen in the car. One of the first times we really were like, “Oh, this is what we do, this is our chemistry†was when we were shooting season one, episode three, where we were following Rick around in the car. We found a rhythm.
Was that deliberate, Bridget? Because when you’re in a car, you can talk to each other, but you don’t have to look each other in the face.
BE: We had that conversation in the writers’ room, about the kind of conversations you have in the car when you’re not looking at each other. Consequently, there are a lot of car conversations. But it also feels Kansas and probably midwestern — just not city living. That is what I remember about being in Kansas: sitting in the car, talking. You’re in a car a lot.
There are some really emotional scenes in the finale. Joel visits Pastor Deb to ask if he can rejoin her church, and he’s still having those crying fits. Tricia goes into Holly’s house for the first time, something she hasn’t done since her sister died. Jeff and Mary Catherine, how do you prepare for emotional scenes like that?
JH: If you just read the script again, you can summon that stuff. And Lennon makes you feel very safe. If you need a little quiet time beforehand, she’ll give it to you.
Mary Catherine Garrison: My process is let ’er rip. I show up like, I think I know the words and let’s see what happens, and that’s it. But this time, I really didn’t have it for that scene you’re talking about. I wasn’t on the money with how I was approaching it, and Lennon’s concern and care was so deep and so specific. She had thought every moment through so beautifully, more than I had. I came in doing X, Y, Z, and then she very gently said, What if it’s more A, B, C?
What was the difference between what you were doing at first and what you ended up doing?
MCG: There is that feeling sometimes when you’re grieving or you’re really sad that if I start crying, it’s never going to stop. Lennon was trying to get me to think about a place like that, where I can’t allow myself to feel everything, but here it is, it’s coming up anyway. Bridget, does that sound right? You were there.
BE: Yeah, I was there, but I was like, Jesus Christ, Mary Catherine is just nailing every single take. And I was swirling the toilet trying to catch up to her.
MCG: That’s bullshit.
JH: The big scene where I tell Sam she’s my person, and also when I go to Tim Bagley and say, “I don’t think I can go to church with you anymore,†I was like, I’ve got to make this beautiful. And Lennon was really good at being like, “Actually, you’re just a human. Just say the words.†Every time it was like, “Oh, right. You’re not Maria Callas. Pull it back.â€
Sam gets a call from her dad in the finale. Was anybody on the other end of that call with you, or were you just imagining what the other end of that conversation would’ve been?
BE: I just imagined Mike being there. We maybe did it once or twice. That was all we had to do. Just thinking about him and how much fun it would be to talk to him.
Was it important to you to include a reference to her dad?
BE: It’s always really important for us to have Mike along for the ride because he was such a big part of the foundation of the show and it felt like the perfect way to have him there. After the phone call, it cuts to birds that are flying over the farm. Usually we do three B-roll shots after a scene when we transition, but that was just the one. We held on the farm and the birds, and that was for Mike.
Jeff, you’ve talked in interviews about how the religious journey Joel goes on mirrors some of your own experiences. Did his decision to break away from Brad and go to his own church resonate with you?
JH: It felt true to him. He’s made this really huge sacrifice to say, “I’ve always wanted children.†It’s not possible in this particular relationship, so he’s willing to give that up, but he still needs something for himself. Also, he has to believe in himself enough that he can believe that Pastor Deb would still accept him. I love the writing of that, where she says, “What took you so long?†I loved that church in particular. Even though we haven’t seen it lots and lots, you get the vibe of that church. The first line from the pastor, she says, “I want chips and a margarita for dinner.†I love a beautiful congregation with a handbell choir that’s more formal, but Joel needs to be at that place because his expression of faith is helping other people and that church helps people.
This show talks about religion in such a nuanced way. Yes, there are jokes about the church ladies, but to show that maybe one church is for you when another one isn’t, and to show gay people being accepted at church — those are small things, but they are important. Even with the church ladies, I was thinking, “They’re making him a mascot.†But my husband watched it and he was like, “It’s so beautiful that they’re trying.†He’s not someone who grew up in a church. For him it was like, “You’re painting these women in a kind way.†And I was like, “Oh, yeah, we are.†They’re not terrible people. They just don’t really know a gay person.
MCG: That’s one of the zillions of things I love about this show, though, that it’s not mean. It never takes a low blow or low shot at anybody. It treats all the people with respect and integrity. It’s a rare bird in that way.
JH: Plus so much poop humor.
MCG: That part I don’t love.
I don’t remember if I’ve ever seen an episode of television that opens with a close-up of dog poop the way that this finale does. It feels like the first time that’s happened.
MCG: What an honor. What an honor.
Why did you decide to do that?
BE: Because we think poop is funny. That’s it.
JH: It wasn’t real poop, though, right? It was prop poop, right?
BE: It was prop poop. Yeah, I touched it. God, I hope it was.
For the last scene in the bar when Sam sings “The Climb,†did you have that song in mind for the show for a while?
BE:  I love singing that song. It’s something I’m used to singing on the road when I was touring with my little cabaret. It might be a little on the nose, but I felt like it was perfect.
Was anything scripted for that scene? Or just, I’m going to do the song and whatever happens happens?
BE: I think I sang it three times and we tried to think where the cameras would be. But I’m up there doing it and these actors are just checking their nails and nobody cared.
JH: How dare you? I had a hangnail.
BE: No, but it’s interesting when you’re used to singing something live and everybody’s kind of fake applauding because they can’t make the sound or whatever. It’s interesting to have to bring that kind of energy. Also we shot that on maybe the third or fourth day or something ridiculous because of the way we were shooting on location. I was like, are you sure this feels like enough? This is the last scene in the season. And they’re like, yeah, we think we got it.
MCG: Bridget, you didn’t feel like you had it when we shot that day?
BE: It’s just impossible to know because we hadn’t shot any of the season. We were doing everything with Darri, Iceland, because we had his availability for such a short window of time. So we shot all his stuff at the beginning and everything was out of order, and it was just so hard to track where we were. But I think the good thing about the show is that it really forces you not to think cumulatively. You just think, Where am I at this exact moment? How do I feel right now?
You finished production on this season in the spring. Has it felt different knowing you’re not coming back?Â
BE: We’re all going to be in Kansas for a finale watch party. I was like, Oh my God, am I just going to be crying all weekend again? Right now, I feel like I’m at my own funeral. I am reading all these nice things about the show. Tim and I talk a little bit. We both feel like we’re the most desperately sad about it. The other night, I watched episode 305 three times in a row or something like that. I don’t want it to be over. I am going to miss everybody so much and what we’ve built together.
But I try not to bore anybody with how I’m feeling. As incredible as it’s been, as fulfilling and dreamlike as it’s all been, it’s equally as difficult to take the last breath.
JH: For this show, there have been these huge breaks. Because of the strike, there was a full year where we didn’t film anything. My body is always used to missing this show, like, Oh, I can’t wait this long, long period of time before I have that really short period of time where I get to be an artist and work with people and have this dreamy job. It has not hit me that we don’t get to go back.
MCG: I’m a little bit worried that, like I was saying earlier, once I start crying, I won’t stop. But I feel like what you said, Jeff. I’m so used to waiting on the show to happen again that it almost feels like another waiting period. Then I keep remembering that it’s not a waiting period. So I keep reremembering, which really sucks. Reremembering hurts. It physically hurts.
JH: We were all in a place that was so different before this show and I never could have predicted this show. Who knows what is out there? It’s just, you get scared because we’re not —
MCG: We’re not 25.
JH: We’re not Anya Taylor-Joy. I don’t know that I’m going to get asked to go to Namibia and film some Mad Max movie. It is pretty unlikely. So just the taste of this art — it’s so sad to not be able to go back.
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