As Somebody Somewhere completes its third and final season on HBO, Bridget Everett is ready to reveal how her gem of a comedy comes up with stories about life in a small Kansas town.
“Plot isn’t central to our show,” the actress admitted Friday at Deadline’s Inaugural TV Sidebar, which launched this year as part of the SCAD Film Festival in Savannah, GA. “I think that’s what makes it unique. It’s just our taste, I guess. We’re more interested in the way the characters interact with each other. In season one, we tried to do a little more plotting. But every time, it didn’t feel organic to the show. So it’s really more about putting people in situations and how they can grow off of each other.”
Launched in 2022, the series follows Sam (Everett), a true Kansan who struggles with loss and acceptance in her midwestern hometown. One of the relatable hallmarks of the show, which won a Peabody Award in season 2, is how it features normal-looking actors playing normal-looking people.
“When they were talking about casting Murray Hill as Fred Rococo, it just instantly felt like, ‘okay, this is going to be populated with people who would populate my real life,'” recalled Everett, who was joined at the SCAD TV Sidebar with co-creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, along with co-stars Paul Hiller (Joel) and Mary Catherine Garrison (Tricia). “I kept thinking during the first season how this doesn’t feel like it’s a TV show. This doesn’t feel like it’s enough. But [executive producer] Carolyn Strauss was always like, ‘no, this is special. There’s something really good.’ That helped us keep doing it, to keep looking for normal-looking people. We just wanted it to feel so Midwestern.”
Deadpanned Hiller in response, “I go through six hours of makeup to look that dowdy.”
One of the breakout moments from season 2 involved Tricia starting her own business making X-rated pillows that featured the word c—. Garrison admitted that the storyline startled her, at first.
“I’m from the south and I don’t have brothers. I’m sort of scandalized by that word,” Garrison told the crowd. “It’s one of Bridget’s favorite words.”
“We wanted to see Tricia grow,” explained Everett. “She sort of accidentally finds success doing this and then she learns to embrace it. I don’t know, I just think it was interesting. There’s no real reason other than it’s funny.”
Everett didn’t want to spoil what to expect in the final episodes of Somebody Somewhere, other than to say “it’s about facing fears, pushing yourself to grow and trying to embrace change, as painful as that is.” The season 3 cast includes Hill as Fred, Tim Bagley (Brad), Jennifer Mudge (Susan), Mercedes White (Tiffani), Meighan Gerachis (Irma), and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Iceland). The season was written by Bos, Thureen, Everett, Lisa Kron, and Lennon Parham, and directed by Jay Duplass, Robert Cohen, and Lennon Parham.
And should HBO consider a spinoff, Everett’s already got the title and logline ready in her back pocket. “It’s going to be called Somebody Somewhere Else,” she said. “It’s going to be Joel and Tricia and they’re running some sort of camp for kids. And she’s still got her pillows.”
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