Read on below for our full interview.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:Since we last spoke, quite a bit has happened!
JAMES DUFF:Yeah.
TNT
There were a ton of reasons.
She did an amazing job.
She knocked it out of the stratosphere.
Darren Michaels/TNT
We knew the show was finished even though that has not been announced.
She’s a mature artist.
We accepted our fate.
What was that conversation with Mary like?
Mary and I looked at each other and said, “This is obviously dead.
How do we want to manage that?”
This was the way we thought we could accomplish a lot of different goals, with this one action.
I feel like we made the right choice.
I feel like I did the right thingnot just for now.
I didn’t do the right thing just for the people who are watching now.
Series don’t go away anymore.
They run and they run and they run; people come to them and they arrive at them.
This is how the story ends.
Were you at all worried about audience response?
But the vast majority of people are not upset, and our ratings have gone up!
So much for the “We’re never watching!”
My obligation to Mary was far greater than my obligation who feel like they’d been shortchanged.
Was there any plan for extending the show, should TNT have gone that route?
We gave the web link a chance to say “Don’t do this.”
It’s not like the online grid did not approve it.
“Don’t do that, and we’ll pick up the show.”
That’s not what happened this time.
We knew where we stood.
We felt like we had a good shot at coming back.
But in the event, I played it over nine episodes.
I could have ignored the writing on the wall and just let the show peter out.
It felt like they deserved a period at the end of the sentence.
What was the feeling as you wrote toward that finish?
It was very upsetting.
Ages before other people, we were watching the show.
It was like watching your home disappear.
This was our professional life.
The audience wanted us to stay.
It was very difficult.
It really helped us appreciate the last few episodes we had together as a working family.
Mary called in on our last day of shooting and talked to everybody on speakerphone.
She’d never had off, believe it or not!
She and her husband had never had off in the fall, ever, in their whole lives.
She called from the road and shared our final day with us.
How did you map out the rest of the season, beyond Sharon’s death?
We always knew that we were going to finish with Phillip Stroh this year.
We hired him early on.
We knew we were going to do it.
TNT had ordered us to do these longer-form storiesfive-parters and four-parters.
Who would his accomplice bebecause he always has one.
And what would the challenge be for the squad?
We could not have told this story this way with Sharon in place.
It’s impossible to think of Sharon saying “by any means.”
And impossible to imagine some of the stuff that has happened, under her watch.
They learned what they hoped to accomplish in her absence.
What kind of note did you want to end on?
How do you feel about the execution?
I feel very good about the finale.
The very end, the very last scene, is slightly defiant.
This story is going to go on for a while.
I feel like we now have the right ending for it.
You’ve been in this world for more than a decade, and TV has changed quite a bit.
I’m thinking about that right now.
We’ll see where the industry takes me.
It’s changed a great deal.
I need to see where I fit in, in the new world, and if I fit in.
I’m hopeful that I can find a way to do another show.
