As Christmas approaches, Carol spearheads a Secret Santa gift exchange to spread some festive cheer.
That being said, you guysfinallyindulge yourselves and turn out a holiday episode.
Did you have reservations, or were you guys just going crazy and wanted to have some fun?
I think what made Will more comfortable with it was when we married it to Phils illness.
That gave it a reason for existing in Wills mind.
Also, shout out to Kira Kalush.
This is her first staff writing job too, and shes such a great addition to the room.
Did Carol being a Christmas fanatic just make sense to you guys?
Everyone who likes the show would want her to blow it out.
And while we do like pulling the rug on viewers, this didnt seem like the time.
Were you looking for an episode to specifically highlight Carol again?
We are so lucky to have Kristen Schaal.
That woman is a laser-guided laugh missile.
That felt too sitcom-y to Will and we will never forgive him for that even though hes probably right.
Were Carols Christmas decorations your production designers dream come true, or a nightmare?
That insanity must have taken forever to pull together.
It wasnt overwhelming the house.
Kira came to me with a sick look on her face.
Dont we need a lot more stuff?
The clock is ticking and we cant slow down the schedule, and were telling them we needwaymore stuff.
Was there discussion at any point of any characters being a denomination other than Christian?
I know you got into this a fair bit back onCommunity, but what was the timbre like here?
Yeah, we had stuff in the script that got cut for time.
And shepoints to a tiny little cubby with a small dreidel, Kwanzaa candle, and a Ganesha print.
I doubt you might see it, but on that shelf behind Carol, that stuff is there.
We shot it and cut it for time.
But that was probably too scary.
The gifts that everyone ends up getting are all fantastic and pretty insightful glimpses into who they are.
What else was being kicked around for this?
One big one we wanted was R2D2 for Carol.
Erica gets her R2D2, the real prop, and Carol says Oh, the robot from Star Tours!
And then inside a compartment would be the dress.
Even though that property is owned by 20thCentury Fox, its a licensing hassle to get permission.
We couldnt get that approved in time.
Its a bummer because Carol was gonna bedazzle it.
For the rest of the season, we were going to have a fully bedazzled R2D2 in our show.
I hope by telling you all this, you arent disappointed in the stuff we did use.
Tandys gift to himself is beyond perfect, too.
Really nailed it with the wanton destruction.
Originally, instead of Pitbulls yacht, we were thinking Tandy blows up The Queen Mary.
Im not sure its common knowledge, but whatever.
We blew up Pitbulls yacht.
Incidentally, our inside joke for the name of Pitbulls yacht is Snatch A Wave.
Pretty sure thats a Tim McAuliffe joke.
Shout out to Tim for being funny one hundred percent of the time.
We learn that Mike Miller has been in space for three years in this episode.
Thats some time before the virus broke out.
Did you guys figure out what his mission in space was exactly?
Was it virus-related in any way?
No, hes just a scientist up there hatching worms.
We had talked about delving into what happened.
And then his crewmates off themselves, but he cant bring himself to do it.
But ultimately, none of that moves the story forward so were not getting into it.
you’ve got the option to just keep it in your back pocket like were doing.
Now this is a cliffhanger!
It seems like Melissa is being genuine here, and theShawshankcallback is a great touch.
In spite of whats happened, theres still a very real connection between Todd and Melissa.
And we had strong arguments for each possibility.
Someone in the group has to step up to execute the surgery.
Melissa has to deal with Todds refusal of her proposal.
Mike makes a decision about returning to earth.
Mikes cliffhanger last episode feels a little manipulative with how quickly you get him out of that situation.
What was the thought process here?
No, I wouldnt say that.
Its a crazy powerful ending.
Appendicitis feels like a pretty believable ailment to turn to with Phil.
No appendicitis was our first thought.
We really wanted it to be something thats easily fixed in our world, but life-threatening in theirs.
Are there any symptoms of Phils appendicitis in previous episodes that people can hunt down?
I looked pretty carefully but came up empty.
No, we only had Boris portraying side pain right before he collapses.
I think we did a little research to ensure thats plausible, but check me on that.
Just know that if you believe in superstition, Tandy may very well have caused Phils predicament.
Can you talk about the process for this one and if it was given any special attention?
To be honest, often an episode like this is easier to break than one with less happening.
Sometimes having a clear constraint like that is easier than having a blank page where anything can happen.
Was that Body Lockers scene improvised at all, because it feels crazily natural?
So he did some moves for Will and then they were off and running.
Is this going to be some awful secret that dies between Tandy and Todd?
I actually had not thought about that.
Could be a really huge reveal at some point.
Thank you for that.
We had written on a card that Gail needs a body and Tandy and Todd dig up Gordon.
For a little while, we figured Gail would have to suck it up and practice surgery on Gordon.
But the more we thought about it that just seemed too gross, even for our show.
We were all relieved when we found that idea of the surgical dummy.
That came about because we were looking online to see if an amateur could actually attempt an appendix surgery.
We Googled appendix surgery and one of the videos had a doctor doing the surgery on a dummy.
Thats how we learned they existed and we were grateful we found it.
Like if youre doing movie parodies and stuff.
So Jason really pulled out his drama chops for this.
Will, and all of us writers, were unambiguous about how this ending needed to feel.
No fucking around with this one.
Mike deciding to eject himself in space is a pretty tremendous decision.
Were there plans to keep him up in space longer?
Yeah, that space story had to go somewhere.
It either needed to end or move forward.
I think on March 6th, you will be very happy with how weve handled it.
Cheating an audience is something that can really turn them on a show.
You bring up some very real situations here, too.
Yeah, this was another one of those rare occasions where we knew what we were doing.
The fates of these two characters was decided months ago.
Theres always going to be some other Phil Miller amongst them.
That exact thing has been discussed.
We are undecided, but she has already ruled out two very good name choices.
You guys havea lotof balls in the air coming back from this finale.
Its a plausible way to keep the baby angle fresh and efficient.
You are consistently right regarding our story concerns.
And up until now, weve only jumped once, at the beginning of this season.
Our walkthrough onLast Man on Earthswill continue after the season finale.The previous entries can be found here.
