Followers of The Different Two—the HBO Max comedy created, written, and govt produced by former SNL head writers Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly—are used to a little bit of leaping round. The essential darling, which follows Brooke and Cary Dubek (Heléne York and Drew Tarver) of their quest to flee the shadow of their Justin Bieber–esque brother, ChaseDreams (Case Walker)—and, ultimately, the shadow of their Ellen DeGeneres–adjoining discuss present host mom, Pat (Molly Shannon)—premiered on Comedy Central in 2019 earlier than getting scooped up by the streamer for its second season. Almost two years after making the leap from cable to streaming, The Different Two returns to HBO Max on Might 4 for its third season, the place it’ll make its largest leap but.
After cruising via every part from a Hillsong-inspired baptism to an occasion devoted to unveiling a secret Hadid’s face, season two ended on maybe the most effective one-off pandemic joke we’ve seen on TV to this point. Struggling actor Cary lastly acquired a starring position in an indie movie, with rehearsals set to start—when else?—March 13, 2020. So, is season three all concerning the harrowing journey of creating an indie movie about important employees amidst a world pandemic?
Sure, says Kelly. “All 10 episodes happen in actual time on March 12, 2020.”
He’s joking. As an alternative, Kelly and Schneider correctly determined to leap three years into the longer term for season three. “We did simply skip proper the hell over that,” Kelly says. “Please ensure you print that this isn’t, like, a COVID present. We’re not all about COVID now.”
However season three doesn’t faux the pandemic did not occur, both. “Our present is so grounded in what feels actual and present. We did not need to make a present that utterly ignored our present scenario and the continuing results of dwelling via a world pandemic” says Schneider. (Fittingly, we’re speaking over Zoom.) “We’re three years sooner or later, however all of our characters have been impacted ultimately by what we have all gone via. And we simply tried to discover completely different humorous routes that that will take them.”
Season two ended with Cary and Brooke each discovering success in their very own proper—with Cary’s performing profession lastly taking off and Brooke turning into supervisor for everybody different member of her household. However that doesn’t imply all their issues have gone away. If something, the extra issues change the extra issues keep the identical.
“With the time leap, the household is years into being a part of the general public eye,” Tarver tells me in a separate Zoom name with York. “I really feel like they’ve settled into their fame or their notoriety, and the problems that they had been coping with have develop into extra commonplace. There’s perhaps a deeper layer of, I assume, humiliation and unhappiness that comes together with that. The present continues to ship by way of the characters being humiliated—the “different two” getting humiliated—in a really thrilling, humorous, new method.”
The intersection between humiliation and hilarity has at all times been The Different Two’s bread and butter, whether or not that entails Cary’s nude by chance going “gay-viral” or Brooke inadvertently main a “Girls Can Suck” chant at a panel. However season two proved that The Different Two additionally excelled at sharp cultural satire, with sharp takes on every part from HGTV to Vogue. Cary’s season two dalliance with Dean, a straight actor who wished to appear homosexual in public, predated proliferating discussions of “queerbaiting,” whereas Pat’s discuss present, Pat!, arrived proper across the morning discuss present renaissance that additionally introduced us The Drew Barrymore Present, The Kelly Clarkson Present and The Jennifer Hudson Present. Clearly, “Pat’s affect is aware of no bounds,” Kelly jokes. “That is all due to Pat.”
