'Pitch' Postmortem: EP Kevin Falls on the Season 1 Finale, Where We'd Pick Up in Season 2
Warning: This interview contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Pitch, “Don’t Say It.”
Mo McRae (Blip) warned us that the Season 1 finale of Pitch would leave fans “torn up,” and he wasn’t joking. Episode 10 ended with Ginny (Kylie Bunbury) injuring her arm while pitching a no hitter. Blip had a fight with Mike (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) in the dugout. And the drama didn’t stop there. We spoke with executive producer Kevin Falls to help process the finale — and tease Season 2, should Fox, fingers crossed, decide to renew the drama, which Falls says was always slated to have just 10 episodes in its freshman outing.
Was the plan always to injure Ginny at the end of the first season?
Yeah, that was always something that Dan [Fogelman, who created the show with Rick Singer] wanted to do from the beginning. We wanted that as the cliffhanger from probably the first or second episode. We wanted her to get her power back [with that speech on the mound]. We felt the Mike Lawson of it all tipping to a certain point, and we wanted her to seize the moment. Bookending Mike Lawson helping her at the beginning [of the series] with now she’s turning into her own person. Then, at the end, when she says, “Sing your own song, do your own thing,” what happens when you’re doing your own thing, and maybe you could’ve ended it better with a few people, and you find yourself all alone? The idea was to end it where she’s all alone.
This is really subtle, but the last shot of the pilot is Ginny kind of looking off into the future with a great deal of hope. She’s made it, she’s fulfilled her father’s dream and her own, and there’s so many possibilities. The finale ends on the same look, but it’s completely different: she’s all alone, she’s in an MRI machine, and the future’s very muddy going forward. That’s what we wanted. Like anything else, she’s got to claw her way back into it post-injury in the second season.
The fight between Blip and Mike in the dugout is almost as upsetting as Ginny’s injury.
Yes, I agree. This show does a pretty good job, I think, of treating everyone like a family, where everyone’s pulling for each other and all kind of going in the same direction — which is supporting Ginny, but also winning baseball games. They all have that in common. Like any family, whether it’s Will and Ginny as siblings or a sports family like a team, there’s going to be some conflicts and some bumps along the road. Why not take the two people that get along as best friends and make things hard for those two?
Mike is not the most communicative guy when it comes to how he talks to people in his life. He probably could’ve handled his trade [situation] a little bit better, and Blip got invested in taking over and being the captain, along with feeling a small sense of betrayal. He does get, to some degree, what Mike is going through, because ball players go through the hell where they have one foot out the door because they’re never really in control of their future until they’re clearly a free agent. We wanted to disrupt things, to agitate and shake up relationships so people didn’t get too comfortable, and it gives us something to put together as a writing staff going into the next season.
Blip and Evelyn’s marriage is a relationship fans adore. He wants to have another child, she doesn’t because it’s time for her to focus on her career. At the end, Blip is on the couch. We don’t have to really worry about them, right?
We try not to be too literal. I think a guy sleeping on the couch, he may just be settling down to watch Pitch On Demand, I don’t know. There’s so many things you could be doing, so I wouldn’t read [too much into that]. There’s no pillow, there’s no blanket. I think there’s a little bit of a moment where he could’ve already turned on ESPN and checked up on Ginny, and he could go upstairs and see his wife. There’s no question that we’ll insert some conflict in there, but I think they have a foundation of a great marriage, so I’m pulling for them to get through it. But you never know.
Mike’s ex, Rachel (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), showing up in the stands is perhaps the only happy ending in the finale. Assuming that’s a happy ending for him…
Rather than have everyone be estranged and everything go wrong in one game, we thought, “Oh, okay. Well, those two may end up together and start over.” I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that it won’t be smooth. That it just won’t be, “Oh, they’re going to get married and have kids, and Rachel will be the steadying force in his life and he’ll make clear-headed decisions and be the great leader.” No, we’re going to make it messy, of course. But I wouldn’t mind exploring that relationship in a new way that is very adult. It’s just not going to be simple — nothing will be simple on this show.
How do you view the sexual tension between Ginny and Mike, especially moving forward?
I know we have all the Bawson shippers and people that really like those two together, but this was never going to be like they were going to get together at the end of the season. It was extraordinary circumstances for these two to have gotten as close as they did [in Episode 9]. They showed their cards in that bar scene, in that near-kiss goodbye, but it was only because he was almost traded. We’re a TV show — we know that M-P isn’t going to go anywhere, but we wanted to come up with something that would put them in a position where something like this could happen. If Mike Lawson would’ve never been traded, he never, ever would’ve crossed the line, which means that Ginny wouldn’t be put in the position to be tempted. These extraordinary circumstances allowed this to happen where it’s always going to be there, they know it, but they also know as long as they’re members of the same team they’re going to do everything possible to make sure that they don’t cross that line. But again, you don’t know. It’s going to be hard to snuff it out, but we have plenty of stories to tell other than just once again flying close to the sun with Ginny and Mike. Give us a second season, and we’ll do it.
What are you hearing about a second season?
I can say this: Fox, the network and the studio, they love the show. It’s clear to us. We all wish our numbers were greater, but we do well with DVR viewing and streaming. There’s metrics that they’re still measuring. Every day there’s people binging the show, so clearly they’ve heard about it and hopefully we pick up new fans and all those metrics are factored in and we get a second season.
Everyone has to remember that this show was only supposed to be a 10-episode order. It was supposed to be a midseason show. There was never like, “Oh, they’re not getting picked up for the back nine” — there never was a back nine. There’s no place in the schedule for us on Fox [now], so our fate, much like a lot of other shows, will be determined in April and May when they sort everything out. They’ll see how their other shows do, they’ll look at their pilots. What we have going for us, I think, is it sounds like we will have a baseline of an audience in a desirable demographic that they’ll have to go, “Okay, they’re there.”
What are you most proud of accomplishing in Season 1?
I’ve been on some great television shows — a show like The West Wing, maybe in the Top 5 greatest of all time. I’ve never been more proud of a show since that show than I am of this one, because everybody going in said, “That was a great pilot. Where are they going to go with the series?” I think we proved that we can go plenty of places with it, deliver some of the great things they used to do on Friday Night Lights with the emotion and what these athletes go through in their families. I think we delivered the baseball on a weekly basis with a great degree of difficulty to be executed. I know that MLB’s been happy. I’m proud of the choice of actors that thanks to Dan and Rick’s script we were able to bring into the show.
I’m just proud of every single department. I think it was one of the best new shows of the fall. I think not enough people watch it, to be honest, and I think when they do watch it, they end up sticking with it. I’m really just proud about having a show that has a positive message, that presents strong women, a diverse cast and crew and directors, and hits on every cylinder. I couldn’t be more proud of the show.
What would you be most excited to tackle in Season 2?
What I would look forward to is that we get to explore the off-season. We dropped in on this show [in Season 1] in June, right in the middle of it. We talk about picking up the show in spring training, and then telling stories of what happened in the previous three months, maybe in flashbacks. I think it’s really just figuring out what’s going on with Ginny, more than anything. It’s like, is she going to be able to come back? I gotta think she’s got a pretty good chance because it’s a television show that stars her [Laughs], but we’re really picking up the pieces of where we left the show with so much disharmony with these main characters and Ginny going into an MRI machine.
You mentioned the casting earlier. Mark-Paul Gosselaar is so great on the show, but not someone we would have necessarily thought of. How did you know he’d be a great Mike Lawson?
There’s a couple things. I co-created a show with Bill Chais called Franklin & Bash, and M-P was co-lead of it. I always knew he was funny and could do the light drama. I know Franklin & Bash was a one-hour comedy, so the dramatic moments were few and far between, but when they were there, there’s just a depth to M-P. He’s kind of a moody guy, and I say this lovingly because he’s a very dear friend. You never know what you’re going to get with him. He’s very inward thinking, super smart and prepared, and a lot of that could be dismissed as a guy who’s in a bad mood. A lot of times he’s just a deep thinker. Mike Lawson is very close to M-P. He’s not dysfunctional — he’s happily married and he’s a great family man — but there’s some of those deeper, inward moments that are self-reflective that M-P has that Mike Lawson has. Though Mike Lawson, if you go back to his childhood, he has a much more troubled past.
I knew he was an excellent actor. I was just so excited that we were able to explore this side of him. He immersed himself and learned how to be a catcher. He put on 20 pounds for the role. He worked out. He grew the beard. He reinvented himself. There’s people that watch an episode, they’ll be several episodes in and go, “Oh, that’s Zack Morris.” They don’t even know it. His dedication to the role, and the fact that everyone is seeing him and there’s the Emmy buzz — the whispers about, “This guy deserves to be recognized on that level” — is very exciting. I’m just very excited for him because it’s happening to somebody that’s a good friend.
Kylie I had no history with. I remember the first day meeting her and telling her, “You’re number one on the call sheet, and you have to be a leader. Other actors and actresses are going to take their cue from you.” She would come in every day always prepared, always saying hello to each crew member, hugging them. She set the tone in a way where no one else could misbehave. [Laughs] No one dared come in there being a d–k, because we have a no-a–hole policy anyway, but if number one doesn’t behave, no one does. She took it to heart.
She’s going to be a star. She is a star. She’s a wonderful actress. She learned to throw a baseball. She has the DNA to do it, because of her father and him being a professional soccer player. I’m amazed by her as an actress, so is M-P, who doesn’t suffer fools. He was blown away by her. They all love to be doing what they’re doing. They love going to work and it shows in how they perform their roles, but also being a leader and yet being literally one of the youngest cast members is a thing I like to celebrate and tell everyone about. I’m just blessed to have those two as one and two on the call sheet.
I also love Ali Larter as Amelia. Amelia and Ginny have that amazing scene in the finale where Amelia tells Ginny she won’t be there the next time she needs someone. By showing us Amelia’s backstory early in the season, we understand her and we’re rooting for her, too.
Ali didn’t want to be the bitch on wheels, and we didn’t want that either. We wanted her to be strong, and she wanted her to have the humanity, which Dan gave her with the backstory about the kid in the second episode, where she was trying to have a child and couldn’t, and then her husband dumps her on the spot, which is heartbreaking. Then she quits her job. That immediately dimensionalized her from the pilot, where she was pretty much one note. She’s beautiful and a good actress, but as you watch the season go on, you got to see her other chops — that she could do comedy, that she was vulnerable.
In that last scene, it’s really heartbreaking. It’s very unsettling to see those two argue. Ginny’s been really tough on her, and I think Amelia’s just about had it. There was softer, more emotional, warmer versions of that argument. We went with the knock-down, drag-out because we just thought it was better for the end of the show. She delivered it so well, as did Kylie. That was great.
They were all so prepared. You’re trying to put a gag reel together with these actors and it’s difficult because they don’t make many mistakes. … Mo’s another one of these guys who’s just silky smooth and a rock and the best friend you always wanted, the husband you always want. Sometimes maybe people, as he said in the pilot, are taken for granted, and Blip has a bit of a temper. We saw it in the pilot and we saw it resurface at the end of the season. A lot of good people sometimes have a quick temper.
It’s such a deep bench of actors, there’s no drop-off when the next actor steps up. Meagan [Holder]’s deft dram-com instincts, [Mark] Consuelos’s ability to be a compassionate harda–, Tim Jo’s amplifying small moments for laughs and poignancy [as Eliot], and [Dan] Lauria’s steadying paternal gravitas… A gifted orchestral cast with the talent to hit the high and low notes — and I’m so pleased to say I described them without using a baseball metaphor.
