Believe it or not, Season 2 of “Colin from Accounts” initially ended on an even bleaker note.
Not that the current ending isn’t already a heartbreaker. Swept up in wedding fever, Gordon abruptly proposes to Ashley on the dance floor. And she doesn’t say yes, leaving them in an awkward place, relationship-wise, and him in a humiliated position in the middle of a dance floor. Was there ever a question of ending the season on such a dire note?
“It was more dire,” co-star and co-creator Harriet Dyer told IndieWire.
“It was just Gordon and Ashley in the wide after he proposed,” co-star and co-creator Patrick Brammall said. “So after [Gordon] puts the music back on — and it was still ‘Slice of Heaven’ — it’s a wide frame. They’re like on an island and you’re like, ‘Oh, they’re fucking dead.’ And they’re trying to dance and it’s not working. And then people just float in front of them and people are dancing. And then it’s over.”
Dyer and Brammall point out that they were “balls to the wall tired” at that point, over budget and overstaying their welcome in the editing suite. While Dyer was having her hair done, Brammall received a note from a network executive pleading for more hope at the end. Simultaneously, Dyer’s hairdresser was telling her that “Colin from Accounts” is her “happy place. “She literally said it was her comfort food,” Dyer said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, the [cut] that we sent out half an hour ago is not comfort food. No.’ And so I literally texted Paddy and I was like, ‘We need to find as much hope as we can.’”
Unfortunately, they hadn’t shot much hope. Fortunately, they found a handful of close-ups that at least provided a smidgen of optimism for the embattled couple. And the eventual cut was aided immensely by the last-minute addition of a very pricy song.
“Then also, they let us have ABBA,” Dyer said. “They paid for ABBA. And I think the ‘Waterloo’ song also lifted it into a bit sillier, but also a bit of an allegory.”
That push-pull between hope and bittersweetness is at the core of “Colin from Accounts.” This is, after all, a rom-com series in which the two leads meet cute after a car accident paralyzes a dog. But a second season has higher stakes than a show people are just discovering, and Brammall and Dyer found themselves trying to balance ambitions with audience expectations.
“You hear the notes when you need to hear them,” Dyer said. “So her saying, ‘It’s my comfort food,’ was really important for me to hear at that moment when we were stressed at the end of a long process. We really needed that outside comment for sure. We did. We needed an outside perspective because it’s just the two of us. So we can get a little bit lost — especially if we’re underslept.”
“We’re not always that way,” Brammall said. “In fact, a lot of the time, we have very strong thoughts about what we want to do and what we think. But we can be porous for sure. So we have a bit of an ear out for what the audience feels about the show. And once the show goes out and the audience finds it, in a way that does complete the circuit, because without an audience, it’s just masturbation, isn’t it?”
Masturbation is also at the center of one of the episodes “Colin from Accounts” does so well, in which Ashley and Gordon hit a roadblock and (neither of them great at emotional availability) have to find a way to navigate it through their tart-tongued obstacle courses. After leaving for work, Ashley returns and finds Gordon has skipped walking her to the bus station for a porn session. The moment is funny and tense, and it plays out throughout the episode in surprising ways. But none quite so surprising as what brings them back together: a dinner from hell with Ashley’s friend’s horrible new partner, Rumi (played by Virginia Gay).
As they listen to her blather on, both are politely silent — until Gordon erupts with a perfectly timed, “Shut up!” And though the audience immediately worries that his outburst will prompt Ashley to switch allegiances, it’s a moment when they are at last, thrillingly, on the same page as they tag-team putting Rumi in her place.
The scene is riveting and delightful, because we get to watch two people often at odds with one another merge into one. And it was carefully chosen; as Brammall said, “Because all the comedy comes from the tension between them, we’re very careful to plot the moments where they are together.”
That was the reason Episode 3 (in which Ashley and Gordon fight over how many women he’s had sex with) needed a quick rewrite. Initially, the episode ended with Ashley demanding that Gordon get his “fucking check-up.” But they realized at the table read that the climax came across as, well, both Brammall and Dyer made a Lucy Ricardo “Ewww” sound when describing it.
“And so we were like, ‘Hey, First AD, do we have room in the schedule for a makeup scene in the hospital? And also maybe a small montage as he drives angry and she goes around work angry?’” Dyer said. “And of course they broke a pen in half and said, ‘Yep, we can fit it in.’ And we quickly wrote something. Because we needed a resolution. We were like, ‘We’ve got the com, where’s the rom?’ And we do need people to go, ‘Oh, they should be together.’ Season 1, it’s all about, ‘Will they?’ And then in Season 2, it’s ‘Should they?’”
“Colin from Accounts” Season 2 is streaming on Paramount+.
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