“I am scared and excited and all these feelings.
Man, it’s actually a real joy to feel those things again.”
Warning: This article contains plot details from Monday’sDispatches From Elsewhereseason finale, “The Boy.”
Credit: Jessica Kourkounis/AMC
This experience helped me remember that."
It’s actually directly from the very personal, fourth wall-shattering season 1 finale of the AMC series.
Four months later, Jason has written a script forDispatches From Elsewhere.
Universal Pictures
It’s The Boy, and he reads Segel the riot act.
You got drunk, you got rich, and you stopped being you.
Youre a weird dude, you made a Dracula puppet musical.
Own it, dude.
But its a start.
He leaves with one last message: Time to grow up.
If you better write another Muppets movie, Ill be back.
We next see Jason on a stage.
Benjamin (as Fredwynn?)
understands the “Fight Clubon acid, written by someone who likes life” concept.
This experience helped me remember that.
And I just think it might be helpful to anybody who is as confused as I was.
I think that maybe underneath all our stuff maybe we just arent as different as we choose to believe.
Maybe I am Jason, and I am you.
Then asked if he thinks he can pull this off, he replies, No.
Not on my own.
Maybe if I had some help.
In the final act, the main four characters/actors are in a field and following along.
The last episode was rather self-centered," remarks Janice (Field).
“I thought the show was supposed to be about community.
he says, talking to viewers.
Its been about us.
Making something together.”
The camera then zooms out and includes the entire cast and crew together.
He reveals that the audience has been a part of this all along.
Octavio continues: Change comes when we find one another.
Did you get all that?
Well, Segel was right that was a lot to digest.
Do you really believe that?
And if so, then start with you.
I had an amazing group of writers who took this leap of faith and helped me do this.
Like Ineededsomeone to talk to about this.
Admittedly, Im even still digesting it, and Im sure viewers will be too.
I always have felt that the thematic explanation should be contained in the work of art.
Whether its a TV show or a movie or a painting or a book or a song.
Like I dont want to hear Tom Waits explain to me what the song is about.
[Laughs] Nor has he ever needed to, because it was in the song.
That is literally my goal.
Like this seems scarier and more revealing than getting naked on camera for a joke.
[Laughs] So your fears become more sophisticated.
And it was part of my mission statement.
Man, its actually a real joy to feel those things again.
I would say that thematically and viscerally it is 100 percent accurate.
And then its presented through the very thinly veiled metaphor.
Whether some of them were beat for beat true or slightly exaggerated.
Its really what I love to do, if Im being totally honest.
Id be lying if I said, Oh, I really had to dig deep to do these scenes.
It actually is where Im most comfortable, its what Im most suited to do.
The only time really in my life where Im free of anxiety is when Im acting.
And so I might as well use that weird superpower to go deep.
Like with the guy yelling about your nude scene or you eating cereal like you did inForgetting Sarah Marshall.
Maybe that added some much-needed levity for you.
Oh man, you caught all the stuff, thats great.
It was all super fun.
Why did you want to have that final scene and kind of like breaking the fourth wall?
Where did you get those people that we saw popping up on video from their homes?
The show has been interactive for almost a year now.
We started by putting flyers up on some lamp posts, just like in the pilot.
People who have been looking for it have been participating and those videos are largely from them.
Its a nice big community.
Listen, man, its the metaphor, right?
Its all around us.
That was one of the amazing things of shooting in Philly.
And the show is that, and I think life is that, too.
What happens if you take that other street?
It was an interesting choice to wrap up the game before the actual finale.
In the end, did the results of the game actually matter?
Our characters and us in life in similar situations.
Do you take the magic that you felt during it and apply it to the rest of your life?
Or do you just decide that the whole thing was bulls— and dismiss it?
“Now, can you further pull the curtain back at all on that mystery?
Yeah, Ive got a plan.
A plan thematically for the series as a whole and for what each theoretical season could be like.
I think everyone is deciding if were going to do a second.
