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Royal Pains Executive Producers Michael Rauch And Andrew Lenchewski On Future Movies, Alternate Love Connections, And What Happened To Mandelbrot
Which one has more of a kinship with Zack Morris? Find out!
As I deal with my post-Royal Pains bereavement, a quick chat with the men who brought it to me -- Andrew Lenchewski and Michael Rauch -- offered some comfort. How did real-life events shape the path of the show? Was a Hank/Jill pairing always endgame? We got into it!
Our Players
The Talk
Pretty much right up until the point that Divya got pregnant with Raj's baby, I was rooting for her and Jeremiah to get together. Was there ever a plan for that to happen?
There was a lot of conversation in the room about that happening, and obviously there was with our viewers as well. We weighed the pros and cons of that relationship and ultimately felt like creatively, for the bigger picture of the show but also for the characters, it would feel more authentic to who each one of them were. As nice as it would have been to see, we didn't feel like those two people would really work out in a romantic relationship. The less creative and less articulate answer is also Reshma got pregnant, and it would have been very hard to say that Jeremiah knocked her up, and also anyone else did. So the reality of working with actual human beings and not in animation is that sometimes real-life events can help push you in a direction you may have been going in already. It was both those things that kind of sealed the deal.
And of course Evan had already gotten together with Paige before either of the pregnancies happened, but was that ever a possibility either, Evan and Divya?
It was something that was pined for by a lot of viewers in the first few seasons of the show, and as many viewers felt strongly that it should happen, there were just as many viewers who felt like it was the worst thing that could ever happen. As we went further into the run of the show, I think it became clear at least to us that what we were seeing was really a sibling dynamic, more than a will-they-or-won't-they dynamic. So, it felt really on-theme for the show, which is a show fundamentally about family, and at a certain point I think we stopped hearing the audience clamor for it, which to us felt like we had succeeded in getting to the real heart of that relationship.
They did evolve gracefully into a brother-sister vibe. Back to Jeremiah: what happened to Mandelbrot?
Great question. That is a fantastic question that I think is best left unanswered, but he's up for adoption if you're interested.
I live in Hawaii, so it'd be a quarantine issue for me, but that's good to know!
That's not a problem. We'll ship him over there.
Hank went back and forth over this final season between really wanting to start a serious relationship and settle down in the Hamptons, and then, as we ultimately see, ending up following Jill overseas. Was there a concern with the other characters around and making big moves -- Divya going to medical school, Evan resigning from HankMed, and so forth -- that Hank might seem a bit reactive by comparison?
Michael, I don't really feel you did any work in that last answer, so it won't be very good.
I would say not only was there not a concern, but we had built it that way to kind of help propel Hank to make the ultimate active hero move in the end of the series. We realized early on, when we hadn't found a satisfying and deep romantic relationship with Hank, that the story we wanted to tell was one of him becoming a deeply rooted member of the Hamptons community, both as a citizen and obviously the best doctor there, and also to the realization that happened in [the musical] episode that there's nothing wrong with being single. It doesn't mean you can't have a happy life. It doesn't mean there's something you've done wrong or there's something bad about you. So, those two things together are part of what kind of cemented the deal for him to be able to then let go of that anxiety and that stress and make the decision he ultimately makes, which is both to leave the community he's such a part of, and to leave it to chase love. So, while these other people were active in their personal lives, Hank was always driving the episodes with the medical stories, but it also all was a setup so he could have this enormous, heroic moment in the series finale.
Right, and was Jill and Hank always meant to be endgame, or were there other contenders? Because when Ana Ortiz showed up earlier this season, I thought that pairing might work well, too. They had a really nice chemistry, I thought.
Obviously in the pilot, Jill is if not the reason then certainly one of the reasons that Hank stayed in the Hamptons to begin with. So there was a sense that that was a relationship that was destined to last for the run of the show, even if it sort of ebbed and flowed. Then, in Season 4, when we lost both Jill Casey and Jill Flint to another medical show, we had to start imagining new possibilities. We tried, as you know as someone who's seen the show, many different possibilities, even at one point facing accusations that Hank was being a little bit of a bed-hopper. We cast extraordinary actresses and we had a lot of fun writing different relationships, but it always felt to us that the Hank/Jill relationship was the one that was meant to be. Jill Flint was amazing about making herself available so that we could help conclude his story and their story the right way. We brought her back in the middle of Season 8, actually for our hundredth episode, to sort of key it up a little bit, and hopefully by the end that made it feel like it was not only earned but inevitable that these were two characters who were just meant to end up together.
A few Christmases ago, you did a special event movie. Would you be open to doing another one of those, to pick up with the characters again?
I'm speaking for every single person on the crew, cast, writers' room right now: we would absolutely be open to it. We love where we ended the series, and we feel like we completed all of the relationship and character stories, and at the same time that we left doors open to see where they're going, and that it'd be a lot of fun to revisit the Hamptons, whether it's one summer, two summers, or five summers later, and pick up and see where everyone's lives had gone and how they have changed and are changed. And we need the money.
There's also, in the post-Better Call Saul environment, a possibility you could do a prequel spin-off, perhaps about young con man Eddie.
Ooh, that's a great idea. Unfortunately, Henry Winkler is not available, because he's going to be starring in an HBO show with Bill Hader.
Two last questions: what is your favorite show? Can be now or all-time.
Michael.
You know yours. You've just got to let me think.
I have two answers, and it's not a joke because the shows couldn't be more dissimilar from one another, but in my humble opinion the two best shows in the history of the medium are #1, The West Wing, and #2, Saved By The Bell.
It's a great and impossible question. Definitely Taxi jumps out at me as a half-hour that I loved and had a tremendous influence on me. Current shows right now: I love The Americans, and that's probably the show that I'm most excited to watch. But there's so much amazing television on right now that it's hard to narrow it down.
You already kind of answered this one with Taxi, Michael, but the next and my final question is, what is your most formative show, the one that shaped you the most?
For me, those were my formative shows. Those were the shows that made me not only want to be a writer but be a better writer. I'll let you guess which of the two shows that applies to. So I'll flip it and I'll take the other answer. For me right now, I love The Americans, I love Bloodline, and currently my wife and I have been watching Sons Of Anarchy and we are quite desperately addicted.
For Must See TV Week, we ask:
that you not tell Henry Winkler, Mark Feuerstein, or Paulo Costanzo where their Must See TV shows ranked on this list.
In fact, maybe don't even tell them it exists!