(Agnès Ricart / For The Times)
There’s only one thing more shocking than your favorite TV show pulling the rug out from under you with a plot twist you didn’t see coming: Not getting spoiled about it beforehand. It’s a feat several of this year’s Emmy nominees miraculously pulled off. Did you cover your mouth when one show killed off a main character? Scream when another’s conflicted hero made a fateful romantic choice? Gasp when that perfect-looking world was revealed to be anything but? If you answered yes to any of those, then the steps the folks below took to protect their show’s big shockers worked. Let’s break down the biggest twists of the season and how they were kept a secret. (And it should go without saying: spoiler alert.)
‘Paradise’
The Twist: Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) discovering the murdered body of President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) isn’t the biggest shock in the drama’s pilot. The first is when, at the end, “[The camera] pulls up and you realize everyone is in an underground bunker with a fake sky,” explains executive producer Dan Fogelman. The Nerves: How to keep from losing sleep? Plan, plan, plan. “You get less nervous because you start going, “OK, here’s how we’re going to execute it,” he says.
The Security: Fogelman recalls the twist-filled “This Is Us” as “frantic,” with code words and red script pages. But he’s since mellowed, even giving press episodes early to screen. “If you start worrying about everybody’s worst impulses, you’ll just be hamstrung,” he says.
‘Only Murders in the Building’
The Twist: In Season 4’s fourth episode, Paul Rudd, who, as pretentious actor Ben Glenroy, was murdered the prior season, suddenly reappeared … as Glenroy’s Irish-accented stunt double, Glen Stubbins. The Nerves: “We’d kept Paul’s return under wraps purposefully, and Paul was the cheerleader of that,” says executive producer John Hoffman, who admits concern over the surprise. “We had big talks in the writers’ room, like, ‘This probably is a bit too far for us.” What eased his mind? “The great charm of Paul Rudd,” he says. The Security: Besides NDAs and watermarked scripts, Hoffman says, “I always want the mystery to be preserved, so I’m oftentimes on set freaking out and realizing, ‘Wait, who’s here? How locked down is the set?’”
‘Severance’
The Twist: In the trippy drama’s Season 2 finale, Outie Mark (Adam Scott) rescues his captive wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), but, reverting to his innie self, sends Gemma through the exit door to stay behind with his other love, Helly (Britt Lower). “That was always seen as the end point of the season, with Mark stuck between Gemma and Helly,” says Scott. The Nerves: Scott worried more about the post-episode “Severance” podcast with executive producer Ben Stiller and letting spoiler-y details slip too soon. “We’d all listen through [episodes] separately to make triple and quadruple checks.”
The Security: “The actors are trusted with the material and the information,” says Scott, also an executive producer on the show. “There aren’t big secrets being kept from the cast. We’re not particularly precious like that.”
‘The Diplomat’
The Twist: In the political drama’s Season 2 finale, former U.S. Ambassador Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) calls his wife, current U.S. Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), and tells her the president (Michael McKean) has died, making Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) the new POTUS. The Nerves: Executive producer Debora Cahn originally thought the twist “sounded like the dumbest idea ever,” and was embarrassed to pitch it in the writers’ room. Even after working out all the details, Cahn admits, “I still thought it was going to suck.” The Security: Cahn’s reservations kept the script’s last pages redacted to everyone but Russell and Sewell until the cast table read. “We got to that last page, they read the last line and there were gasps and screams,” she says. The moment finally convinced her that the shocking twist worked.
‘The Last of Us’
The Twist: In Season 2’s second episode, hero Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) is brutally murdered by a vengeful Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) while a helpless Ellie (Bella Ramsey) watches, an event that comes from “The Last of Us” video game.
The Nerves: Between game fans and viewers who only know the show, executive producer Craig Mazin isn’t worried. “Our obsession with spoilers sometimes obscures the fact that that is not why we watch things,” he says, citing “Titanic” as a favorite even though “we knew it was gonna sink.” The Security: Scripts are watermarked and sides on set are collected and shredded but filming multiple scene versions like “Game of Thrones” famously did? Nope. “If I start writing a fake ending, I might be like, ‘Wait, this fake ending is pretty good, right?’”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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