JASON SEGEL: The whole season was really planned out. Speaking with Deadline ahead of tonight’s broadcast, Segel discussed the inspiration behind the finale, the challenges of crafting his first series, and the prospect of a second season for the AMC anthology.ĭEADLINE: How long have you had the finale for Dispatches in mind? Jason directly addresses the audience-and in the series’ most meta moment yet, the camera pans out to reveal the entire cast and crew who brought Dispatches from Elsewhere to life. The season ends with Jason sitting in a field, surrounded by the series’ key characters, who comment on what they’ve seen. Following confrontations with Simone and the boy in makeup (i.e., his younger self), Jason learns to take responsibility for his life, his choices and his pain, channeling the new perspective into a script called Dispatches from Elsewhere. Setting out to find himself, Jason surrenders to the unknown, learning a couple of fundamental lessons along the way: 1) Neither he nor his pain is unique, and that’s OK and 2) the only thing he needs to know at any given time is what to do next. He is then quickly inducted into the same mysterious game (or social experiment) the series has explored all along. Soon, though, we learn that this isn’t Peter-that the person speaking is Segel, himself.Īfter the meeting, Jason bonds with Simone (Eve Lindley) over his inability to figure out his next move. At first, we think this is Peter-the character that series creator-star Jason Segel has played throughout Season 1. Subsequently, we transition to a meeting where a familiar face describes his struggles with alcohol, and how lost and empty he feels after being used up by the industry that made him a star. Inspired by what he’s seen, the boy becomes an actor, ending up in the clown makeup we’ve seen him wear since episode 3.Īuditioning for a room of executives with a rendition of “Make ‘Em Laugh”-the iconic song from Singin’ in the Rain-the young thesp shoots to stardom, only to realize that show business isn’t all he hoped it would be. (God help anyone who forgets his title.Titled “The Boy,” episode 10 of the freshman AMC drama opens on a boy in a black-and-white world, watching such classics as The Muppet Show and Harold and Maude on his small retro TV. But it’s Grant whom we want more of as the always mercurial, never trustworthy likely game-master Octavio Coleman, Esq. In contrast, Field demonstrates her dazzling versatility, while newcomer Lindley brings the bursts of lightness and vivacity that are in too short supply in this gray, stately production. It’s also hard not to notice that the weakest performance is the one delivered by Segel, whose strengths hew to his eagerness, which often veers compellingly between puppy-like to guard-dog intense - and which he has little reason to showcase here, at least thus far. The episodes for review highlight the emotional rewards that the game provides for the four players - a narrative focus undermined by the stock characterization of the core cast. But Fredwynn insists that the game is nothing but a distraction from something bigger and more insidious. Peter is just relieved to feel something for once. Simone and Janice, both lonely, are happy to have a days-long, city-rediscovering puzzle to play, especially one that takes them on a quest through parades and protests, rooftops and shareholders’ meetings. (Organized by Oakland-based artist Jeff Hull, the game, which evokes self-help speak and midcentury pseudoscientific imagery, seems much more like a Bay Area phenomenon than a Philadelphia one, rendering the show’s East Coast setting a counterintuitive choice.) The series is based on Spencer McCall’s 2013 documentary The Institute, about an “alternate reality game” that, between 20, sent more than 10,000 players who weren’t exactly sure what they were getting into on a high-concept scavenger hunt all over San Francisco. But a team for what? That’s the central mystery of Dispatches From Elsewhere, or at least of its first four installments.
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