The new Entertainment Weekly (December 9, #1443) has a brief write-up of next Sunday's mid-season finale, "If You're Happy and You Know It" (3x9):
The last people on Earth are reaching peak despair. Melissa's (January Jones) grasp on reality continues to loosen, and Gail (Mary Steenburgen) is still "missing"/trapped in an elevator, so the depressed Carol (Kristen Schaal) replaces her with a fish. "You can't bring dead things back to life," Carol laments. "Hey, tell that to Jesus Christ," Tandy (Will Forte) replies. "And his buddy Frankenstein." So yes, there are still plenty of good jokes, but mostly this episode offers the kind of bittersweet delights in which LMOE excels. It all culminates with a lovely, Kinks-soundtracked cliff-hanger ending--and the possible death of one of our friends. B+
~ Ray Rahman
Sounds we'll be getting back to "... Unwitnessed Deaths" quality (or close to it, anyway) after these last two episodes of basically filling time between plot turns.
I'm not even gonna try to guess the Kinks song; Will's last couple picks ("Dreams" from the
Percy soundtrack and "Daylight" from
Preservation, Act 1) have skewed fairly obscure...
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
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sarahthenerd
8 years ago
Whoa, spoiler alert!
(Not you, the article!)
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grchereck
8 years ago
I know I would've liked to be surprised about the Kinks thing. But yeah, EW is actually pretty good (for the most part) about not giving away too much when they're recommending something.
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
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grchereck
8 years ago
Last Man on Earth star Mary Steenburgen spills on that fall finale shocker
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/12/11/last-man-earth-mary-steenburgen-gail-fall-finale
When you learned about the plot to have Gail trapped in an elevator — and then that she would seemingly wind up taking her own life, what was your reaction?
I want people to experience this show without me blowing anything for them, because I hate it when people do it to me. So I’m going to be careful about Gail’s fate. But this whole experience of the show has been this crazy, creative dive that I’ve done with these people. Nothing surprises me on this show. People come and go — sometimes you don’t know what happens to them in the case of Jason Sudeikis [who plays Phil’s virus-infected brother, Mike], when we’re not 100 percent sure. Sometimes you do know in the case of Boris Kodjoe, who left the show last season after I killed him (laughs) during an appendectomy surgery ... [Y]ou really don’t know what’s going to happen, and that’s what drew me to it in the first place. In terms of going on that adventure, I kind of knew what was going to happen in talking to the writers but I was willing to… do that. (laughs) This is so hard to talk about.
Let me ask this: What did you think of everything in the elevator leading up to that moment?
We have wonderful scripts and [the writers] work really hard on them. But because Will is such a creative soul who isn’t frightened by as far as I can tell, anything ... he’ll go anywhere, and it means that you’re not safe, but it means you’re going to have a deeply creative experience, which is what I had. And one of the things that I’ve loved about it is that I’d had my own personal thoughts about why Gail responded to this new world by trying to anesthetize herself, and in some ways, you could say it’s because she’s the oldest one. And there’s the possibility of being lonely because she’s not in a place [like] the others where they’re talking about creating new life, and things like that. But for me, I began to work from the point of view of — a lot of what motivated her had to do with her past. So I went to them at one point and said, “How would you feel about Gail having a son and he didn’t die in the virus? We don’t say how he died, but he didn’t die in the virus.” And they loved that. There’s one reference to it if you happened to have watched the show, and it’s a scene with Kristen and myself, and then that’s it.
So in answer to your question about anything that happens in the elevator, for me, every single thing that happens in the elevator had to do with that one fact: Gail had had a son, and he died.
***
You brought up her son, a revelation that was a powerful moment when Carol was trying to get Gail to sign those adoption papers. Anything you can say about how he did die? Is that something that you worked out in your head?
Yeah, that’s my secret. I worked that out a long time ago, and I haven’t even shared that with the writers. Or any of the cast. Or even Will. But it definitely affected everything, but particularly those scenes in the elevator.
Of course, we never saw Gail shoot herself. It was just heavily implied. How much hope should we put into the idea that she could still be alive — and maybe she just really shot Gordon to put him out of his torso-less, wigless misery?
Well… um, that’s an interesting thought, although I think Gail’s too smart to use her last bullet on a dead dummy, but I don’t want to give or take away hope. (laughs) Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you. I would love to spill the beans…
***
What did you think of the way this story line resolves in the spring premiere?
I loved what they did, and I loved the integrity of the show. And I love that no matter who comes or goes in this show, they treat everybody with a ton of attention and integrity and affection. I mean, we still celebrate Boris and that character. I think that there’s going to be so many cool surprises in the second half of this season. I know there are. There’s really fantastic stuff coming up.
***
If Gail is, in fact, a goner, what kind of psychological impact will this have on Carol? She all but drove Gail away, as Todd told her. Should we be worried about her?
It’s a show that deals with both redemption and loss constantly ... who we are to each other and how we treat each other, and then surviving each other as well as life and this plague. For people who have survived this apocalypse, I love that nobody’s talking existential theories about life and death; we’re in some ways just as small and petty as people are who haven’t seen what we’ve seen. And now and then, you see the effects of their past lives on their present lives. And I do love just the thought that these people have all seen a tremendous amount of death. They don’t talk about it very often at all. They love fiercely again as opposed to being robotic or being detached. They connect, which is what ultimately I think we’re all put here to do and that we desire to do. I don’t know if I’m answering your question, but in terms of Carol, I think that all those things will be true, you know?
If Gail is alive, will this give her a new lease on life? She says incredulously to herself, “I’d give anything to see those freakin’ idiots right now.”
(laughs) Yeah. I could see it giving her an appreciation for things. Yeah, it could go either way.
***
It seemed like the bullet that hit Gail was causing to bleed out, and maybe she wanted to end it before it came to that, and maybe also that she had reached final frustration. Is that why she appeared to resort to such a drastic measure? Was it also because what you said about her son too?
Right. There’s that. And I think there’s also just a question of “If this is going to happen, do I take control of this? Do I have control or do I give up control and have hope?” There’s only one bullet, so once that’s gone, then that’s it. You have to have hope for as long as you’re alive there. But I think the question is: Which is more important: Hope or control over a situation that has been not what you would have chosen? It’s the final ability to make a choice.
Any hints about another story line — the mental decline health of Melissa? It’s a really dark story.
It is. I think she’s doing such a good job of it. I don’t know if it completely resolves itself right away, but I think it becomes even more fascinating. I will say that.
Those storylines are contrasted with something more positive: Lewis (Kenneth Choi) finally landing his test simulation flight. Speaking of hope, should we have some hope for that he might make it to Tokyo to search for his boyfriend?
I think so. Just as hope is what’s fueling him. I love that whole drive of he and Tandy going back to his house. All of that just was very moving, and he’s just a wonderful actor.
Any final thoughts to leave people hanging on? Anything you say could have meaning as people wait for months.
Well, if you love this show, you will not be let down by it. I feel as somebody who loves this show — and loves all the characters and loves the people — that rather than having gotten more careful or anything, this season in particular just continues to amaze. I really, really mean that. So I don’t think they’ll be disappointed.
***
'Last Man on Earth' Star Mary Steenburgen on Gail's "Painful" Past and Uncertain Fatehttp://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/mary-steenburgen-last-man-earth-midseason-finale-954586This season has been rough on Gail. She finally gets an "adopted" daughter and is part of a family only to end up here. What do you think has changed for her this season? Has she changed?
I think that she’s always been somebody who’s a grounding force in the show and I’ve been sort of the truth teller in the bunch, the one who doesn’t take any of Tandy’s stuff. And I don’t think that’s changed. Gail didn’t suddenly become cuddly and all sentimental and emotional, but I think she’s carried that secret [her son's death] around a long time and the fact that somebody knows it, I think made her connect more than she would have, and made her open up. Even though she may think they’re crazy, there’s also a sense of fondness.
Let's talk about where Gail starts off in this episode -- she just wanted to some peace and quiet but she's stranded. What is running through her mind?
I think she sees her life flashing before her eyes and she knows she’s most likely not gonna make it, and she probably has some regrets about how she was stubborn and pushed everybody away. There's a part of Gail that believes her son is out there somewhere, there’s some comfort in that, and a sense of, in her version of heaven or whatever that is, I just think she’s feeling, she got herself into this situation so she knows it's self-inflicted.
When Gail shoots and it backfires, she seems to lose all hope. What do you think she regrets as she sits there?
She literally shot herself in the leg – literally and figuratively it’s her own fault, so her fate not only lies in her own hands but it was created by her. I can understand wanting to get away from these people (not these actors, I’m in love with all of them), but these characters. But I can understand why she did it, and I think everything about her goes back to the fact that she had a son. Every single thing she does has to be about that, and the subject of family is very painful and the subject of being alone or being of value or choosing to live or choosing to die, all of that is informed by a couple of sentences a couple of episodes ago, that we never revisited again, and I love that about the writing.
This episode seems to be a lot of the characters' breaking point. What do you think it is that's suddenly affecting them in this way?
I think the fact that they were shot at and there was this path that made them feel unsafe, that affected them in different ways. Suddenly our world was threatened – the life and deathness of it became much more epic...
Going forward, what are your hopes for the group?
One of the things I love about this show is two characters you couldn’t imagine loving each other really and [Tandy and Carol] start a relationship on television. I love that, without being sappy, you can see that these two people who are so dysfunctional, they make something very real in sense of love, and my hope for them is that their baby and Erica's is okay...
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
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