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- March 1, 2023
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Bridget Everett logged on to Zoom at 2 p.m. on February 2, 2022. Her HBO show, Somebody Somewhere, had debuted a few weeks prior, and the half-hour dramedy about a cynic’s midlife crisis in rural Kansas was building a modest but impassioned audience. Everett and cocreators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen didn’t know whether the network would greenlight a second season—“It’s not doing Euphoria numbers by any stretch,” Everett says—but they were meeting with an executive to pitch potential story lines anyway.
For those of us falling in love with Somebody Somewhere as it aired, the same worry had sunk in: This gentle hug of a show was too niche, too lovely. It would never get the shelf life it deserved. But when Everett and her collaborators prepared to start their brainstorm, Amy Gravitt, HBO’s comedy chief, assuaged everyone’s fears. “Before you guys begin,” she said, per Everett, “I just don’t want to speak about this in hypotheticals. Because you’re getting a season two!” The Zoom session erupted into celebration. So, too, did the series’ admirers when HBO announced the renewal to the public the next day.
Somebody Somewhere, which grew in cult status over the course of 2022, thanks to word-of-mouth buzz and a spot on the American Film Institute’s list of the year’s 10 best shows, will return to HBO on April 23. Vanity Fair has the exclusive first look at the new episodes.
If season one was about Sam (Everett) grieving the death of her sister, the only person she felt understood her, then season two is about her moving beyond that grief. She’s deepening her friendship with rosy former classmate Joel (Jeff Hiller), developing a renewed connection to her other sister (Mary Catherine Garrison), and working with a warmhearted singing teacher (Barbara Robertson) who conjures in Sam emotions she’s never known how to express.
“We’re opening her up a bit,” Bos says. “She’s really tapping into things she hasn’t tapped into in years, and she’s finding a little bit of confidence…A bit of season two is now she’s dealing with this giant thing, which is: Is she worthy of love? This relationship with Joel, it’s a big relationship for her—because he not only calls her out on her shit, but he also encourages her. Sometimes, with best friends, you latch on to each other. You love someone so much they teach you to love yourself. And then there are always consequences with those kinds of relationships, because they’re so heightened.”
Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller in “Somebody Somewhere.”By Marian Wyse/HBO.
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