In the end, it was all about found family — well, found family and Miley Cyrus. The third and final season of HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere” concluded December 8, and the ending moments found Sam (Bridget Everett) movingly belting out Cyrus’ “The Climb” for her friends at a bar.
“I’ve been singing that song for a number of years, and I think that there’s something that is definitely a little on the nose about it, but it’s really it can be very moving to sing, and I had a personal emotional connection to it,” Everett explained to IndieWire about the song choice. “And I also thought that it just met the moment perfectly for Sam, and that the performance of it would be fun and it would make sense in the moment. It was the very first thing when we talked to music supervisors: ‘You have to find the money for this song.’ And I don’t know if Miley personally signed off on it. I like to think that she did.”
The episode, “Agg,” written by co-creators Hannah Bos & Paul Thureen and Bridget Everett, found Sam embracing her people, and finding joy in celebrating that.
“Normally, when she sings, it’s because somebody else is asking her to and this is just: She’s having a good day, she feels good, and she wants to share it with people,” Everett said. “And I think that is just a massive step for her. It seems small, if you think about it just on paper, but for me, it just always seemed like a triumph for her.”
The finale of the HBO program — which IndieWire named as the best TV show of 2024 — also showed the very beginnings of a romantic relationship with Iceland (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) when he also accepts Sam’s invitation to the bar hang, a pairing that had been teased throughout the season. Putting yourself out there romantically is fraught, clearly, and the show does a beautiful job of showing it’s particularly tricky for a character like Sam that has been closed-off for so long.
“It’s meant to be a reflection of her growth,” Everett said. “It’s also meant to challenge her to look inward and to try to face a lot of self doubt and self worth and how that shakes things up for her, because she has become comfortable with Joel [Jeff Hiller], and she has a relationship with her sister, but something new like this is really terrifying for her.”
Given that they were never making a romance, some fans might have been surprised that the final reveal of the finale involved Ice.
“It’s not about, she wants love, a romantic relationship, but I think it is about feeling worthy of love and being able to give love, whether that’s to a pet, whether that’s to your sister, whether that’s to your best friend, or whether that’s in a romantic relationship,” Thureen explained. “And I think for her, the romantic relationship is always going to have the most landmines, but the answer for her isn’t ‘this relationship with somebody else is going to fix me,’ but it’s sort of her being able to sort of reckon with these things that have been like lifelong struggles. … You need to sort of be able to let your guard around [someone], and then they can reflect back the you that you [can’t] see. And I think it’s just another step for her to be to be vulnerable and admit that she is worthy of sharing herself with.”
But, of course, while fans may have smiled when Ice showed up at the bar, the greatest love story was the one fans got to watch unfold over the whole three seasons.
“The real romance of the show is Sam and Joel. That always will be,” co-creator Thureen confirmed.
Excuse us while we go cry — and start a rewatch.
All three seasons of “Somebody Somewhere” are now streaming on Max.
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