The Season Five Deep Dive

It was sort of the long, dark night of the soul.

And this was happening.

And then I sat down and went, OK, but if you were going to do another season, what would you do? And I just sort of let that thought experiment.

And then from there, like the next seven episodes just went click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

They all just like fell into into line.

And I just wrote little two or three sentence things.

I'm like, oh, that would lead to this, which could lead to this, which lead to this, which I haven't done this before.

And then even as we got along in there, one episode was not part of the plan and sort of jumped in.

uh and sort of stuck itself in into the midst and then pushed everything else down and then the ending became much more bigger than i had anticipated but that's what told me that i wasn't done yet and that the ladies weren't done with me and that i had to keep going

If I reflect from just my side of that conversation, because, you know, as your production partner, we talk about this stuff.

There was a long time, like that dark night of the soul part you mentioned, kind of, you know, out of the side of your mouth.

That was a long time where we were assuming that you were done.

And then... overnight you weren't it felt like that happened very fast which which i think is a really interesting exercise in in craft right like how that inspiration strikes and you realize all the sudden the vessel is open and the ladies have more stories to tell through you

yeah at the time all i could feel was the pressure and and and just was just tired and just thinking all the work i would have to do to do all of that and it was it was sort of going oh god i really want to do all of that because it's so much it's so much it's carrying so much which i will talk about as we get into sort of the production side of it it's carrying so much on my back to try and get this through uh that i was like oh i really want to do this anymore but then when i sort of pushed all that aside, like sort of took off my producer hat and put on my writer hat.

Then all of a sudden it was, it was like, no, there, there are, the stories are still there and they're ready for you.

You just have to like pace yourself and be ready.

I'm curious how you plot that because, and I know some of this we've talked about in the past in the nature of sort of, you know, are you a pantser? But, but you've written a, this sort of F storyline is really layered and meta, right? And how you approach that in a season that is both a mystery and a commentary on the nature of being tested and watched and to do so with so much literary playfulness.

I mean, you're tossing Shakespeare You're tossing classic novels and in genre jokes and and so much wordplay.

I'm curious on the craft side, how you how you find you balance the intention versus the performative nature of your writing.

Yeah, the I've always said that swashbuckling is the easiest thing for me to write because the characters just talk to me like I don't I don't have to feel like, oh, like a lot of it.

I'll write some down and go, no, she wouldn't say that.

And I would have to go back and edit it.

There's there's.

One of the things I pride myself on, I think that other people have said too, is you could go through the script and you could delete the names and you'd know who's talking without even hearing their performance.

Absolutely.