As hes done throughout the season, showrunner Graham Yost takes us inside the writers room.
(If you want to jump right to season 6 talk,click here.)
How early on did you decide that season 5 would end with Ava between Raylan and Boyd?
Credit: Prashant Gupta/FX
GRAHAM YOST:We hit on that fairly early in the break of this season.
Shes done everything she can.
We introduced the notion in the previous episode of Raylan understanding how bad her situation is.
But the other thing is, he doesnt like to see her in jail.
Lets back up to the beginning of the hour.
Darryl was cut loose and Gutterson was assigned to tail him.
Where does that come from?
Because its awesome, and I look forward to it.
(Laughs) I dont know.
Its one of those things that becomes self-propagating, you know.
Its worked in the past, lets do it again.
But now that youve said it, were never gonna do it again.
Ive got to call Jacob [Pitts] right now.
Darryls smoking in that scene was also tremendous.
Michael [Rapaport] did a great job of smoking this season.
(Laughs) There was a lot of gusto in his cigarette smoking.
It was a big gesture.
There was lots of smoke and big burning amber and all of that.
That scene was pretty much the same from the first draft on.
And then you get those two actors together and theres a little bit of magic.
We loved that scene, too.
Because he was gonna be soon!
Way to twist the knife.
We wanted Boyds situation to be desperate.
So he exacts his revenge.
In the first writing of it, we just had, Jimmy gets shot.
We thought that was pretty wonderful the way Adam did it.
The duct tape around the mouth he couldnt scream and youre imagining the blood building up.
Did he get a goodbye cake?
And if so, what obscenity did you request this time?
forJames Le Gros farewell cake.)
The cartel was going to kill Boyd, but not before he lured Darryl to them as well.
Lets just have it be the one move when hes holding the cocoa.
But Arkin got in there on the set and kneeled down and worked with Jacob.
That scene was just about everything anyone could ask for.
How he felt just as sick to his stomach when he first shot someone on the job.
That was a lot of Tim working with Fred.
And thats where they ended up.
Ultimately, she used her phone to record an emotional heart-to-heart with Darryl at Audreys.
Why did she tell Darryl that shed recorded him?
Did she want him to come at her so she could kill him?
So she knows that Raylan is gonna show up.
I think thats one of the reasons why she told Darryl.
But I like your version, too.
Was that always the way you envisioned Darryl going out?
And then she was gonna blow him away with the shotgun.
A little bit Chekhovian the shotgun introduced in the fifth episode will go off in the 13th.
But it became too laborious to get there, so we just went for the hidden gun.
But I would say there were different versions of her tone and her approach to him.
His last day of shooting was doing the car stunt the big crash and pulling away from Gutterson.
So we had to shoot this big confrontation a week before the rest of the episode.
But that wasnt it.
It just felt right for Wendy to do that to him.
And he just played it so well.
How should we read that?
I think exactly that: he didnt but he kinda did.
To us, its very different from Nicky Augustine where he conspired with another criminal to have that happen.
He couldve been more vociferous and said, Wendy, put the gun down.
And in this case, Darryl was all about family.
You dont want me to get in the middle of family, do you?
So you two gotta work it out.
And thats how Wendy worked it out.
They pretended hed succeeded, and then they laughed at him.
I cant see Boyd Crowder in Vegas.
We think Boyds been to Vegas.
He has been to Iraq and Kuwait.
Hes a Harlan boy, but we believed it well enough.
Lets have him just always be bad till the Marshals come to his rescue.
Yes, so Raylan finally responds to his texts calling for a meet at Avas house.
Rachel and Gutterson showed up instead and we got a shootout.
Handcuffed Boyd killed the guy you mentioned earlier with a cool shot behind his back.
The behind-the-back shot was me.
I like coming up with that weird action stuff.
It was a great scene.
The fun thing was Rachel saying, Are you sure youre gonna be okay?
Nothing that bourbon and Ibuprofen wont cure.
So you see him later on in the aftermath scene popping a couple Ibuprofen.
Was that touch scripted?
So heres my question: Boyd is a smart man.
Does he know somethings up?
Are you gonna play with that?
Were gonna play with that.
It was not our feeling that Boyd would have connected those dots.
Because I dont think he takes Rachels threat all that seriously.
I dont even think he takes it seriously from Raylan, not entirely.
Art is now awake, and it seemed like he and Raylan are good.
Art revealed that Raylans transfer to Florida has come through, and Raylan was ready to go.
Theres that scene where Raylans talking to Winona thats our bookend for the season of Skype calls.
We wanted to see this genuine emotion between them.
And then it was Natalie [Zea] who said, basically, Can I have a treacle cutter?
She was afraid of it getting too sappy.
So Dave or Fred came up with, So mama can finally get a nap.
Is there a story behind the babys name, Willa?
She showed up with her kids and husband in Monterey last week, so I got to see her.
One question you might have is, is Boyd really Vasquezs target?
Well lets talk about Boyds scene in the RV with Katherine, and Wynn, and Mikey.
We just thought, well, he was pretty good at robbing banks.
So lets get back to that.
The question thatll come up is, well, what does that mean?
Is it just a bank-robbing crew?
Or is there something else going on?
Is there a bigger score?
Were thinking of Art coming back to the office to do one more thing before he retires.
Theres that thematic thrust of, one more thing before I go.
(Shouts)Mendoza!Yeah.
Before he goes off onhis boat called Live-4-Ever.
Are we going to see Boyd robbing banks in differently areas next season or just in Kentucky?
What do you think?
Hes gonna be robbing banks in Switzerland?
I just mean we saw him in Detroit, in Mexico this season.
Are you focused on keeping him in Kentucky as much as possible in the final season?
But its that world.
The question is, how many banks?
And what are we building towards?
And they said, No, we own those frogs.
The frogs were ribbiting while they were shooting.
And I said, Well, what about the sound of the water?
Can we bring that down?
And they said, No, that was real water running under that bridge.
Water never runs under that bridge except for maybe two days a year.
If youre really paying attention, it’s possible for you to see raindrop marks on Raylans hat.
A big storm front was coming through, so they had to hurry to get that in.
As they were shooting the last shot, the rain started to come in and that was it.
The last two lines of the season are Ava admitting shes scared and Raylan saying, Dont be.
Everythings gonna be fine.
Everythings gonna be fine.
I think that was just a brilliant idea.
Because that just sets up, well, man, you just promised her, so you better deliver.
So its gonna be an interesting season for him.
And people were not happy.
They like hearing that song in every season finale.
Although well see, maybe well just run it in the first episode.
And will she survive this story?
Or will she be killed?
Its pretty badass and gets you geared up for the final season.
Its the most percussive version of the song.
It has a real drive to it.
It ended up really coming together.
Will we have a time jump to start the final season, or will we pick right up?
We may have a jump to get Art a little healthier faster.
Or theyll just shoot him up with Miracle-Gro and hell just suddenly recover.
When will you head back into the writers room?
After the Fourth of July.
We talk about this every year, whether Rachel and Gutterson will get more involved.
This seems like the best chance now with the common goal of getting Boyd.
Theyll be a lot more involved.
I cant tell you how heavy itll be.
It may be something like that.
It may be something different.
But they are going to have more of an investment in the story.
Rachels one of the driving forces behind Raylan being asked to stay.
Weve already reported thatMary Steenburgens Katherine Hale will stick around for next season.
Weve made a deal with Ms. Steenburgen, and its for a big chunk of the season.
Do you anticipate adding more new Bads or staying with the players we have in the game now?
Id be surprised if there wasnt a couple people who came in and achieved some kind of prominence.
And what do we do until that point?
Um… Theyre all gonna get on a big party boat and go fishin in the Keys.
We honestly dont know.
And Tim said, Thats fantastic.
So were really paying attention to that.
So we dont know what were gonna do.
We have been thinking about it for sure though.
UPDATE:Joelle Carter phoned Entertainment Weekly Radio (SiriusXM 105) to discuss the season finale.
