AsThe Pittshuts down season one, the next shift is taking shape for creator R. Scott Gemmill.
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ThefinaleofThe Pittfeels like an exhale.
This model allows Gemmill and the other writers to adjust and react to discoveries in casting and filming.
Its about showing what society is faced with.
Your initial pitch for the series was a 12-episode season and then Max requested you push it to 15.
From the get-go, one of the arenas we wanted to explore was the ongoing problems with mass shootings.
We didnt have to come up with an artifice to extend it.
The end is going to be the end.
Where wasRobbys meltdowngoing to happen?
Do we put it in the middle of the mass casualty, or is it toward the end?
And then after the mass casualty, how many episodes do you do?
You dont want to end on that.
You dont want to have this great three episodes of chaos and then an anticlimactic ending.
That was more of the challenge than figuring out 15 episodes.
And I know for a fact that if we wanted to do 18 episodes, they would embrace that.
But its a lot to ask of our crew.
Fifteen episodes of our show is like 24 episodes of a regular season of television.
How did you think about what this last episode should be?
We couldve walked away from this feeling satisfied.
We wanted to get those characters to those spots.
We had to write to them.
I wish Id given it.
When we shot that in September, there was no speech written.
And Noah kept saying, I cant wait to see my speech!
We knew we wanted to talk about mass shootings.
This seemed to be a perfect combination of stories.
So she took it upon herself.
Thats why hes surprised when they show up.
Its why hes so angry with her.
But it seemed like Robby was blaming her for something hed done himself.
He told the cops to talk to Theresa after the shooting started.
Theresa made herself sick to get her son here, so Robby isnt even sure how stable she is.
Now Robby is angrier with McKay because she went behind his back and against his wishes.
Robby wants to believe David is innocent but also knows somebodys responsible for this.
He would be remiss if he didnt tell the cop to follow up on David.
Its not black and white for Robby, and thats where the uneasiness and anxiety come from.
This isnt a situation he can cure with a little bit of medicine.
And, yes, Robby is off his game today.
It only gets worse as the day goes on and the stressors accumulate.
Is he blaming McKay for things that arent her fault?
Hes bouncing back and forth and starting to question himself.
On another day, Robby could have handled things better.
Not so much today.
It sounds like writing was unusually flexible for a streaming series.
Were there things you adjusted as you went or as characters got cast?Absolutely.
Javadi and Mateo, that came out of casting two people who were really cute together.
Adding the ankle bracelet late surprises me!
It meant we had time to go back and make adjustments accordingly.
It was probably while I was writing episode two or three that we figured out the ankle bracelet.
It just felt like McKay needed something else in that character.
Its easy to drop it in, but then its like,How do we get it off her?
When does it go off?
How is she going to disable it?
Does she put her foot in a bucket of bloody water?Little things like that can snowball.
Itll be the most somber 15 hours.
We wanted to have enough time, and we wanted to have some things happen.
Do we want to do a night shift?
Do we want to do a winter season … ?
Were not quite there.
Maybe we get another season or two under our belts before we go back for winter.
Eventually we have to go there; we just have to get our blood thickened.
It just fell into place.
Theres fireworks; somebody doesnt do so well at a hot-dog-eating contest; somebodys sunburned.
you could see all the cases wandering in.
Id rather tell a tight 15 than a floppy 18.
And one hour per shift I think it was a good exercise for us.
It really forces you to have a different kind of storytelling.
How does it change the storytelling?You cant jump ahead.
You cant compress stories for the sake of storytelling.
But it was also for dealing with personalities we have people meeting each other for the first time.
How much can you get to know someone in 12 hours?
Depending on your personality, youre not going to spill your guts right away.
Hopefully thats a problem we have to deal with two or three seasons from now.
For the moment, were just dealing with it season by season.
ICE in the ER.
There are so many things going on; you just have to open a newspaper.
Where do you start?
For us, its not about finding stories its about deciding which onesnotto tell.
Its shining a light on a situation so everyone realizes how tenuous it can be.
Theres already a health-care crisis, but theres an even bigger one looming.
There was always misinformation, which is different.
Its understandable that someone gets something wrong theyre not a doctor; they make a mistake.
But were seeing purposeful disinformation leading people astray.
Weve already lost two children in Texas.
