Bridget Everett handles the ending of “Somebody Somewhere,” the HBO series loosely inspired by her life, in a very Bridget Everett way. “I’m just not ready for it yet,” she says of possible future roles. “It’s like you just had the best sex of your life, and now someone wants to hold your hand.”
That’s the kind of bawdy metaphor Everett could work into her stage act, a bodacious take on cabaret littered with expletives and songs about oral sex. It’s less typical of Everett’s character, Sam, a reclusive woman who has spent three seasons coping with the death of a beloved family member, finding community in her Kansas hometown and gradually coming out of her shell. When we meet at a restaurant in midtown Manhattan to discuss the show’s bittersweet, life-affirming final episodes, Everett is wearing a necklace with the acronym “GAAO,” short for “growth against all odds” — it leading motto of the past season.
“Sam is growing inch by inch,” Everett says, which on the refreshingly human scale of “Somebody Somewhere” amounts to huge steps. Everett herself has expanded her horizons, in line with those of her character: the final season features an original composition that marks her very first love song — at least one that isn’t addressed to her dog. (The show’s staging scene, a shared showcase for Everett and actor Tim Bagley, is extraordinarily moving.) The show’s budget and audience have remained small, but fans, including the Peabody Awards jury, will be deeply mourn the loss.
Also at lunch is Mary Catherine Garrison, a longtime friend and former roommate of Everett. Garrison plays Trisha, Sam’s strict sister who has also experienced great growth. (An ongoing bit in Season 3 has Sam’s friends constantly ordering extra food “for the table,” so in that spirit, all three of us split fries with our salads.) “One of the things I love about this show is that these women are not yet 25, and they are still learning, growing and changing,” says Garrison. By the end of the series, Trisha has divorced, embraced Sam’s group of mostly gay and trans friends, and built a thriving business as a purveyor of pillows printed with profane, funny jokes. Everett’s favorite is “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Cunts,” which she credits to executive producer and former HBO entertainment president Carolyn Strauss.
Everett credits Strauss, whose executive resume includes HBO calling cards like “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” with invaluable guidance for her first experience at the top of the call sheet. “Carolyn is a legend for a reason,” Everett says. “She somehow treats us all as peers, lifts us up, yet is able to teach us all at the same time.” One of Strauss’s contributions to the “Somebody Somewhere” ethos is her advice not to “lean into the ‘honey,'” a reference to a common adjective in the shared lingo of Sam’s friend group. The idea was not to turn the term into a sitcom-like catchphrase that could suck the oxygen out of the cast’s natural rapport, but to let the group form their own, understated chemistry. It’s a philosophy indicative of the show’s overall approach to comedy, one driven more by infectious rapport than by conventionally structured bits.
Thanks to HBO
Strauss also came up with the evocative tagline for “Somebody Somewhere,” which frames the show as a “coming of middle age” — not just for Sam and Trisha, but for figures like Sam’s best friend, Joel (Jeff Hiller), a stranger Christian navigating both his first adult relationship and a crisis of faith. Under the guidance of creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, who together with Everett built a series around the star’s own experience of losing her sister to cancer, ‘Somebody Somewhere’ makes the biggest impact in the quietest moments. One of Sam’s biggest steps forward this season is going to the doctor for a routine check-up; The emotional climax of the finale, which also features Sam performing a rendition of Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb,” features one character simply accepting a hug from the other.
That exchange takes place between Sam and the man she calls “Iceland” (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), the new tenant of her parents’ farm with whom she forms a provisional bond. Ólafsson and Everett had previously collaborated on Maria Bamford’s absurdist Netflix show “Lady Dynamite”; As with Garrison, his on-screen chemistry with Everett comes from real-life familiarity. “It’s not necessarily about finding love and falling in love with Sam,” Everett says of the flirtation, which is more about Iceland patiently admiring Sam than him sweeping her off her feet. “It’s just to show you that she’s trying to grow. She is trying to overcome her fear and her feelings about herself.” The storyline is more about internal change than external validation.
Everett and the writers didn’t know that season 3 would be the show’s last, as they intended, but even if it had, they wouldn’t have come up with a more dramatic ending. “I think it would be a disservice to the show if I tried to wrap everything up,” Everett says. “We did what we thought was right for the characters at the time.” Precisely because ‘Somebody Somewhere’ was never a show that leaned too hard into comedy or pathos, but instead laughed and cried honestly, it still ends on a suitably graceful note. When Sam and Trisha realize they’ve forgotten their late sister’s birthday, the new siblings reflect on the evolving nature of grief in a full-circle conversation. “What I wanted for Sam and Trisha was to find each other,” Everett says. “To realize that they can learn from each other, and that they can make each other’s lives richer.”
In Everett’s mind, she knows where Sam, Trish, and Joel’s journeys will take them years in the future, though she won’t share their story in case she ever makes a movie. “We love this world and would love to stay in it for the rest of our lives, but that’s not necessarily how Hollywood works,” she says, laughing. As sad as the ending may be, Everett remains grateful to the patrons who made the ride possible in the first place: “Only HBO would have given this show three seasons, and we know that.” Everett calls the fact that any season exists, let alone three, “a blessing and a miracle” — assuming God laughs at a poop joke every now and then.