‘Somebody Somewhere’ Never Has to End (but the Finale Is Still Incredible)
Editor’s note: “Somebody Somewhere” is IndieWire’s No. 1 TV show of the year. After that decision was made, we called up co-creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen as well as star Bridget Everett to chat about what makes it so special.
“Somebody Somewhere” had to end sometime… didn’t it?
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Considered by itself, the impossibly endearing HBO comedy from co-creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, alongside star and executive producer Bridget Everett, is exactly the type of show that could go on forever. Following Sam (Everett) after she moves back to her hometown of Manhattan, KS, the slice-of-life series sees her reconnecting with one sister while grieving another, finding friends in unexpected places, and learning to love herself despite all the voices telling her otherwise. In other words, she’s forging the fundamental building blocks of a good life — a continuous process through moments big and small.
“The connection, the small moments, those were the things that we always liked the most,” Everett said in an interview with IndieWire. “What’s most exciting to us were just the various paces at which [the characters] grow and how their lives bouncing off each other shapes them.”
Narratively, structurally, and creatively, there’s no reason “Somebody Somewhere” has to end. So long as Sam is palling around with Joel (Jeff Hiller), helping her entrepreneurial sister Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison), or otherwise growing, learning, and engaging in life’s little wonders, there’s a story to be told. But looking at the series under today’s TV landscape — where contraction is bursting the streaming bubble, smaller projects are struggling to find a home, and I.P. rules all — the days for Bos and Thureen’s rapturously reviewed yet modestly rated sitcom were clearly numbered.
“We didn’t write [the Season 3 finale] thinking it was going to be a series finale,” Thureen said in a separate interview. “We always wrote every finale like it could be a finale because just shooting the pilot was a miracle to us. […] No matter what, it would feel like too soon, whether it was three seasons or 10 seasons. But we always imagine these characters living on forever — they’re still in their cars, talking.”
“We also have been working on this for six years, so we just can’t stop thinking about it,” Bos said. “Something we learned making this show is, between seasons characters do stuff, and you catch up with them when we drop in on the next season. That gave us the ability to have these characters living their own lives. So we don’t really know this is the end of the show. We feel like this is the end of the moment, and then these characters are still going on.”
Everett, unprompted, echoed that idea.
“The story doesn’t stop in my head. It’s like an obsession. They’re constantly with me,” she said. ” I was just out getting my steps, and I was thinking about Sam and Joel and where they might be right now, and I don’t think that will stop. So maybe there will be an opportunity for a movie or something down the line, I don’t know.”
When it comes to an officially produced continuation, fans can only hope. But the creators believe they can do more than that in the meantime.
“I hope that in people’s minds, this isn’t the end,” Bos said. “That they’ve created a relationship with these characters where they feel right at home, where they could imagine them going off and getting donuts and doing all the things they do in their regular lives. I hope people have that relationship with this show.”
“Somebody Somewhere” has carefully constructed such a relationship since the beginning. Not only through its focus on characters — which engendered shared intimacies about romance, community, and faith that bond the audience to people who feel grounded in the rich dirt of Kansas — but through how that focus was framed.
“The way we write and also the way that the show looks, we never want to tell people how to feel,” Bos said. “Everything in the show is extremely subtle, but especially this season, there’s a lot of growth that you may not realize until you feel it.”
“We always really wanted to make sure you never felt the hand of the creators,” Thureen said. “We don’t have extreme close-ups on emotional moments. We have this real observational thing. […] We wanted it to have its own feeling, without the trappings of how TV shows are supposed to be made.”
When the SAG and WGA strikes delayed production on Season 3 from spring to the fall, Thureen and Bos saw an opportunity to broaden their show’s already evocative depiction of the Midwest, where both creators grew up. It would be their first winter season, and rather than heavy snowfall seen through a frosted window or icy conditions that has everyone complaining, “Somebody Somewhere” could paint a portrait of the plains that felt as honest and radiant as Sam and Joel.
“We show so much through the subtle beauty of the Midwest landscape, but that’s a hard thing to portray to the rest of the world, and it was really important for us to make [our] home look beautiful, especially in a season that’s a little bit of a different color palette,” Bos said. “Because in the Midwest, you’re in the middle of a parking lot at Menards, and you see a sunset, and we really have captured sort of that color palette — the Menards parking lot [color palette].”
All of their efforts have resulted in a flood of acclaim. “Somebody Somewhere” has been a critical darling from the start, and Season 3 sends the series out on a high, landing a slew of placements on end-of-year Top 10 lists, including the No. 1 spot here at IndieWire.
“I honestly feel like the fact that we got three seasons is a gift, and I really do feel like HBO is the only place that would do it,” Everett said. “It feels like things have shifted in a different way. People are looking to make kind of bigger things, so it’s hard for something that’s kind of quiet and small like this to exist. I think people are catching on now, but I hope that those numbers will reflect back to executives that people do want to see this. Especially with the state of the world, it’s kind of nice to see something that feels comforting.”
“Just thinking about other people watching it made me tear up — that people could return to the comfort of this show, especially during this time,” Bos said. “I keep thinking about our crew. Everyone who made this show really poured their hearts into it, and I really feel like you can see it on screen. So I hope people just know that it was made with a lot of love and care.”
Everett’s parting aspirations are fittingly personal.
“Sometimes people are like, ‘Oh God, my life sucks because of this, because of that,’ and it’s almost uncool to want to feel joy or something,” she said. “Honestly, as challenging and as painful as the show’s been at times — just by feeling open in a way that I’m not used to opening myself up — I think by doing this show, I’ve learned to be so much happier and it’s a real gift.”
“If you allow yourself the opportunity, if you allow yourself to just crack your heart open a little bit, then your life can be so much richer. Sam, really, it’s like she almost won’t let herself be fully happy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finding that happiness. That’s kind of what I want to take from the show, and I hope other people find that, too.”
Now or later — in Sunday night’s finale or years from now, in their own imagination — I’m sure they will. Once you spend a little time with “Somebody Somewhere,” there’s simply no good reason to say goodbye.
“Somebody Somewhere” airs its series finale Sunday, December 8 at 10:30 p.m. ET on HBO and Max. The full series is available to stream on Max.
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