‘I’ve always known that, hey, I’m not doing a noir show for once!
Let’s give them the happy ending!’
Turns out that the zombie apocalypse actually ends happily ever after.
Credit: Bettina Strauss/The CW
Who would have thought?
But Liv (Rose McIver) and Major were conspicuously absent from the episode.
He was forced to go into hiding and hadn’t been seen in a decade.
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
But thankfully, creator and showrunnerRob Thomasdid us a solid and gave a definitive answer in the final minutes.
And then Diane [Ruggiero-Wright] and I came back on the last two, episodes 12 and 13.
Did you always know you were going to end on this flash-forward epilogue?
Jack Rowand/The CW
That only occurred to me when we started breaking that episode.
How has the series ending changed over the course of the five seasons?
Is it still the same idea from when you first created the show?
The broad strokes remain the same.
I’ve always known that, hey, I’m not doing a noir show for once!
Let’s give them the happy ending!
That much has always been in my head.
I had no idea that Ravi and Peyton would end up together.
That was a new idea.
That only occurred to us about midway through the final season, how we would end with those two.
That definitely felt like poetic justice.
[Laughs] It was a way for both Liv and Don E. to give Blaine his comeuppance.
Both of them got a piece of it.
Don E. shoves him down the well and then Liv shoves Don E. down the well with him.
That felt good to us.
[Laughs] I get it too!
He’s got a lot of charm to him.
He does seem like a more decent guy than Blaine.
In your mind, are the three humans actually considering reuniting for good by moving there?
I have my own idea in my head about whether the friends said, “You know what?
We’ll live on a deserted island with your zombie family!”
I kind of like the audience getting to put them wherever they want in their own minds.
And that’s the end of that.
What was your ultimate goal with ending the series on such a happy note for all the characters?
I’m still shocked none of them died.
I felt like if all of America was watchingiZombie, our nation would be healed by now.
[Laughs] Unfortunately, doing our share, that didn’t happen.
But that was really what I was going for: the lessening of eternal strife in America.
I don’t think we accomplished it, sadly.
Maybe you did on a smaller scale?
The whole theme ofiZombiewas, can the middle hold?
In Seattle, in zombie-controlled Seattle, the middle held.
It did not give in to the extremes on either side.
That’s what I wanted to demonstrate.
[Laughs] You’re welcome!
Would you ever consider doing a spin-off or revisiting this story at some point in the future?
I don’t think it’s going to happen foriZombie.
Obviously, if we never do anotheriZombieI predict that you will see these actors in future projects of mine.
I just adore them all.
I’m probably happy that I provided a happier ending iniZombie.
I think this one is more apt to make fans excited thanVeronica Mars.
IfVeronica Marsis the shot, theniZombieis definitely the chaser.
[Laughs] I may steal that…
I really can’t go online these days.
I will find out the reaction secondhand through Google alerts the next day.
Hopefully, it’s more positive.
We finally did get some stuff about her family into this final season.
I would have liked to have put more meat on those bones.
It’s just we had so many characters to give their own story lines that it just became unwieldy.
I do regret that.
At least we finally got it in the final season.
That was a great payoff.
We had intended to have them in the finale as well, but we ran out of room.
There just wasn’t room for them.
What would we have seen with them in the finale?
You would have gotten a bigger dose of the rapprochement.
What are you most proud of from this series now that it’s over?
It was a fun place to go to work for five years.
It was really the happiest place on Earth.
It was five years of people going to work happy.
In terms of storytelling, I’m fine with where we got oniZombie.
I didn’t mind ending the story here.
It was a really great ride.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
