Posted in: Fox, TV | Tagged: animation, fox, interview, Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, season 3, the great north, Wendy Molyneux

The Great North Creators on Season 3 Finale Part 2, Prom Songs & More

FOX's The Great North creators Wendy & Lizzie Molyneux spoke with Bleeding Cool about the Season 3 finale, "Pizzly" bears & much more!

The Great North wraps up its third season with a two-part finale, and in celebration of the season wrap-up, I got to chat with series creators Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin. The Molyneux sisters, who work on Bob's Burgers, began the series back in 2021. The FOX TV animated series celebrates some milestones as the creators and look ahead at the industry's future in part two of my interview with the duo.

What's the inspiration behind the meaty events that unfold in Lone Moose during the two-part finale?

Wendy: We knew from the beginning that we wanted to do two things. We wanted to make a big adventure episode that tied in a bit to something that really affects Alaska, which is climate change. But how do you take something like that and not make it just a frickin bummer for the entire episode? So we knew we had to come up with something gross and something kind of silly that actually fit our animated universe, too, but also held a little bit of, gosh, this could possibly happen. This has actually happened because of serious climate change problems. We started with the idea that there is a disgusting smell in lone moose, and no one knows what it is, and no one knows how to fix it, and the episode spools out from there. And as you've hinted, it does have something to do with meat. And from the very beginning, Moon says, "There's something about this that smells like gravy," and it turns out to be a rather disgusting problem they find that would not have become a problem if people were being a little more responsible.

So we've just tried to combine something that's like a bit of a heavier topic with something a lot lighter, which is like a disgusting stink, so that's how that sort of came to be. Even though the problem we present is not necessarily the most realistic or one that has happened, we did have a couple of long Zoom calls with an Alaskan climate scientist. To bring some realism into what we were doing. Those were some sobering conversations, for sure, but we always have to take sort of the more serious thing and then think of how we put it through our filter and have it come out feeling light and fun. But you still walk away being like, "Oh shit, we should maybe do something about that."

It's really interesting to hear about the process of developing this type of episode and learning more. When it comes to learning more about something, this finale had me research a hybrid animal, which is the "Pizzly." Explain that a little bit.

Lizzie: We knew what we wanted to touch on, these sort of real issues, and we wanted to bring light to it in a way that felt funny and fun and a part of the world that we've created. But also, we and our writers did a lot of research on the reality of what's going on in Alaska and globally with climate change. That's really where we first learned about these hybrid animals, which is a result of certain animals; species losing their climates. And so they're kind of flowing into other areas and mingling with other species that they normally don't. We found out about these hybrids, and it felt just visually interesting. I guess it's a little scary and a little strange, but this episode is sort of like a big sort of blockbuster, end of the world, type of feel. Can they serve as the monster in the movie? Because of human neglect of the environment.

So, it was interesting to learn about them, and it felt like it was just such an interesting thing to include in the episode. We landed on what we wanted to focus on as the topic for the episode with warming and ice melting, but there were so many other interesting things that we picked up along the way that felt like they could also kind of get we could squeeze them in. Pointing out real things that were happening and creating more obstacles for our characters to sort of get through within the episodes. Plus, it's just fun to say "Pizzly."

There's a mixture of content in these episodes, but I'm curious about who wrote that featured Swedish pop song. 

Wendy: There were almost 16 people involved in writing it because we have our two writers that wrote these two episodes, Caroline Levich and Kevin Seccia. Then we had several of the other writers help work on the lyrics, and Lizzie and I chimed in. We have this incredible music department that works on both Bob's Burgers and The Great North. They all got in there and did their stuff. Close to 16 people will be credited for that song. We mean it to be both fun and also very annoying. So hopefully, we got there.

Lizzie: It was very fun to think of a lot of pop songs, and prom songs that we all had that are sort of happening now. And to take inspiration from that and come up with this wild idea for a song. So it was definitely a very fun process of putting that song together.

Speaking of prom experiences, I looked at Kima & Judy's friendship, and it's really interesting and differently portrayed than other series that display early female friendships. Where did the idea for their friendship come from? And what was important to you when showing that on the screen in the finale? 

Wendy: For the Kima and Judy energy, it always feels like they're pretty unified. They're both full weirdoes who kind of get along. It feels like their problems are outside of the two of them rather than the two of them together. They both have these weird preoccupations with the prom. They support each other. Finding a guy with a giant Adam's apple for Kima, who has a fantasy that men's Adam's apples talk to her. It's a little bit of an idealistic female friendship. Setting it against the backdrop of prom, because there's a climate change allegory in these episodes, it's not the adults who are going to have to suffer through this stuff.

The kids are just getting started, and it's like they're just trying to have fun; they're just trying to party, and instead, they're about to literally explode because of some irresponsible adults 50 years ago. And I have a bunch of kids that I feel like saying to, "I'm sorry, guys, I'm sorry everyone my age was a piece of shit. And now our shorelines will disappear or whatever." So, I think we're just really trying to speak through humor, speak to the younger people out there, and be like, "Hey, we see you. Okay, granted, Liz and I are just making a cartoon about it. Not very helpful, but at least we're trying to say we see you guys." I think, you know, we'll let other series make fun of teen girls; Bob's Burgers and Great North tend to take teen girls more seriously, you know?

Lizzie: There's always that focus on the high-intensity girl world, sort of drawn and fighting and all of that. I think that that's, of course, real on some levels. Wendy and I both have friends with that we've had good relationships, not even at that age. It's a nice thing to show that side of the politics and realities of being a teen girl instead of always showing the negative. We like showing that sort of really good friendship where people support each other, and I think it's out there.

How do you both feel about wrapping up this third season of "The Great North"? 

Wendy: This is definitely an unusual year to be ending on a strike note. Our writer's room started in 2019, and seven months later, we shut down for COVID. We were home for two years. We were back for a little while this year, and now there's a strike. It just sort of shows you that life just never stops happening to you. You could be making all these plans like the Tobin kids make the plan for prom, and the next thing you know, a rancid burst of meat ruins your fun. We love working on this show; we love our actors, we love our writers, and we've had such a good time so far. We've had COVID, we've had the strikes. The next year we'll have, I don't know, like a tornado that directly hits our building, I guess, and we'll just deal with that then. Or there will be a weird, scary clown in the office. We're prepared for whatever the next huge act of nature is. We'll just try to keep making the show.

Lizzie: It's sort of surreal to know that we're wrapping up season three right now, and four is already obviously in the works. Since we're an animation, you're so far ahead. It's a moment of being very excited that we've gotten this whole season three out on the air and just excited for what's to come. As Wendy said, we've been through a lot of different stages with this show, just with what's going on with the world. And we're very proud of everyone involved in the show and just being able to continue going with it. I'm excited that we've been able to do this many episodes. We've built out the world. We've introduced a lot of new characters in season three. We're just excited to sort of keep going and keep growing towards the people that we're reaching and hopefully get more and more people tuning in.

Wendy: If you like "The Great North," tell a friend or tell an enemy; maybe that'll change them, it'll make them a better person, and they won't be your enemy anymore.

I'm neurodivergent, and I've wondered, would you say that the Tobins are neurodivergent-coded? 

Wendy: I think it just comes naturally in the writing, and then coming from our writers' room, I feel like we're pretty open about people having different takes on the world and coming from different backgrounds. We did an episode about obsessive-compulsive disorder, which I have. We just try to fold all of those things naturally into the show, that it's not sitting out like, "Oh, we're representing this or that or the other thing." We have this incredibly diverse writers' room which means you wind up with these characters who are speaking to a lot of different people in a lot of different ways.

Hopefully, people are identifying with something in themselves and seeing it in this really positive light and are like, "When we all just kind of like accept each other and get in a groove, all of this stuff is actually really beautiful and wonderful." Sorry, that's so corny, but it's really involvement. All these ways of thinking and ways of being only make the experience of being alive more wonderful as long as there's acceptance. 

Lizzie: It's not completely reality-based. It's a little bit of a utopia or a utopian dream that I think sort of bleeds into the writing of the show. It's always nice to hear that people can relate to things that are on it or have a connection to certain characters. That's always our goal in building out the show and building out the world is to make it sort of as inclusive as it can be since that's not always an option for everybody in regular life. Keeping it filled with people washing off pasta and farting and all of those things that are fun to talk about. But the world that it sort of exists within it is just sort of that, a utopian version of life. I think it's a pleasant thing to sit down and absorb as you're watching TV.

Finally, what do you want audiences to bring with them after they watch this two-part finale for season three of "The Great North"? 

Wendy: Lizzie hinted at it, but there's this feeling of still being optimistic. We've certainly had a lot of crazy shit happen in our lives. And yet, I'm literally sitting in an Albertson's parking lot right now, and there's just the most fucking beautiful tree you've ever seen. And I'm looking at it right now, and it just makes sense that this bad thing happened, and shit blew up, and it was crazy, and it stunk, but we're not at the end yet; we could still do something good. I think Bob's Burgers and The Great North share that kind of feeling of "That was crazy, but what should we do next?" 

Lizzie: I think it's our way of just saying that, hopefully, people are aware of things that are going on in the world. And maybe the more we can sort of talk and bring them forward in ways that don't always doom and gloom, even though I know that a lot of the things that are happening are very gloomy. As Wendy said, it's sort of the optimism or the hope that we can inspire change. And especially with younger people, I think they already are trying to make a change in this world. So hopefully, moving that ball down the field, even just a little bit, is hopefully doing something for someone out there.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!