Eliza Clark, showrunner for Hulu’s Y: The Last Man series, admitted that both the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6 gave more credibility to a pivotal scene in Season 1.
“I mean, I’m grateful that the show is not about a pandemic, in the sense that I don’t want to watch a show about COVID,” Clark told CBR. “This is a show in which an event happens, and then the aftermath is where the story starts to begin. It is not like a virus… whatever — in that way, I’m grateful.”
She added, however, that there are several moments throughout the first season that viewers will connect with.
“I do think that what we are seeing in our world is reflected in the show in ways that are both purposeful, and then also a surprise to me in disappointing ways,” Clark continued. “For example, in Episode 2…when the White House is stormed, I wrote that long before Jan. 6, and we talked a lot in the writers’ room about, ‘Is that real? Would that happen? I don’t know!’ And turns out, it does. Turns out, when people are scared, and there’s conspiracy theories, and there is a breakdown of truth, bad shit happens.”
On Jan. 6, 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., was violently attacked by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump who sought to overturn the results of the Presidential Election. Clark also revealed that they “learned a lot from COVID,” especially when it came to creating a set that felt safe, as well as telling stories that felt believable.
“I had four months to really get into the scripts and make sure that they reflected the things I had learned,” she noted. “But yeah, I mean, when bad things happen, people insulate. They other. They get scared. They get paranoid. All of those things are true in the world and they’re true on the show.”
In addition to the events in Episode 2, Clark previously revealed that Season 1 will also tackle current real-world topics like gender diversity and identity. Specifically, the showrunner said during Y: The Last Man’s Television Critics Association press tour panel in early August, that Y‘s creators “are making a show that affirms that trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary people are non-binary, and that is part of the richness of the world we get to play with.”
Based on the DC/Vertigo Comics series of the same name created by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Pia Guerra, Y: The Last Man premieres Monday, Sept. 13 on FX on Hulu.
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