Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
As far as crashing goes, it was a titular comedy of errors constructed around humiliation.
Last season we saw Pete repeatedly take it on the chin, both personally and professionally.
How deliberate was that pacing?
I wanted to do the journey of a comedian as slowly and as realistically as possible.
So we had to speed it up a little.
Its like listening to an audiobook on one-and-a-half speed.
you might still follow it and its still natural, but were moving things along a bit quicker.
It was a huge deal.
I think in TV and film, too often success for a standup is them getting to doLetterman.
Your faith in the first season was used as an engine for broader story beats.
This season youre really leaning into the day-to-day specificity of being this lone believer surrounded by atheist comics.
In the Christian community that I grew up in, we would talk about the bubble.
I went to a Christian college, which was also a bubble.
And I dont mean it in a bad way.
It was something we were conscious of.
Wed be like, Boy, were kind of in this bubble.
Some people never leave it.
I married someone that was in it.
Then we created our own little bubble within it.
I didnt know or have long conversations with many atheists or New Age-y people at that time.
So it was very deliberate in season 1 to show how Pete is in denial.
He thinks hes going to get back with his wife.
He thinks hes going to get back with God as he knew Him, or It.
Season 2 is Pete realizing, Oh, this is for real.
Superman isnt going to break through the wall and rescue him.
Hes just single now.
Hes alone in New York.
Hes going to meet by virtue a lot of comedians or atheists, and thats true to my experience.
Thats true to the time of my life where I start to meet the beautiful, very attractive atheists.
Most TV shows portray non-believers as one-dimensional cliches.
How conscious of that depiction were you?
and its viewed as a negative thing.
I wanted a gorgeous atheist.
Not too attached, not too rigid.
Just a lot of peace and rapture for the moment.
Your devotion to your faith is well-documented, but so is your affinity for the secular world.
You also curse and discuss drugs and sex in your act.
Do you even consider yourself a Christian comic?
But I am not a Christian comic and would never want to be considered a Christian comic.
Im also a Buddha-loving comedian.
Im also a void-and-the-nothingness-loving comedian.
Its all in there.
So Christian comedy, what does that mean?
It means that Im expected to not talk about fucking.
It means that Im expected to not talk about drugs.
It means Im expected to not talk about anything thats not Christian in that view.
And I fucking hate that.
There are Christian comics who only tour the church circuit and do 100% clean acts.
How do you feel about them?
Is that really what that message got reduced to?
Is a group people that smile broad toothy grins and dont swear, is that what Jesus was?
Its retold in every movie for a reason.
Redemption and grace and openness and an appreciation for infinity are very sexy.
And it somehow got watered down to not saying pissed off onstage.
Honestly, thats why I swear.
And I say thats not true.
We are pattern-seeking mammals but we really love ourselves some nice, clean binary thought.
Its a sports team.
Were cheeseheads and were evangelicals.
I dont think eternal truth is as banal as that.
Like hes graduating to being a semi-dirty comic.
[laughs] Thats absolutely right.
Pete this season is putting his own safe search on medium, for sure.
That beginning moment is very deliberate.
Hes looking at a Google search of boobs but hes not ready for the hardcore stuff.
I dont know if hell ever be that.
Hes also just eating and masturbating and medicating himself.
It meant a lot to me to represent that side of what its like when your wife leaves you.
Your character is sort of this nomad whos perpetually acclimating.
I wouldnt say dark maybe a little dark but just making fun of everything he said.
Its because thats what his vibe is, so I just started playing into it.
Here you are with the guy who ruined your life, yet now hes helping you rebuild it.
Could you speak to that comedic relationship a little bit?
Obviously in real life, my wife had an affair and I did not become friends with the guy.
Thats not to say hes my enemy.
Im just saying we didnt start hanging out.
Theres also some value to Leif.
He knows what hes doing and Pete doesnt have anybody else.
So hes really grasping his straws.
Pete crashed into him.
The show is mostly a retelling ofMoana.
This season Pete meets an aspiring rapper played by Wale who is passing out this mixtape on the corner.
It shows that the grind of being a barker is a common bond across mediums.
Thats why when I see the barkers now, it always means a lot to me.
Most of them have seen the show so we always talk about the shows depiction of it.
Like, heres a great and relevant rapper right now and even he had to go through it.
Everybody has to, even rappers.
A lot of rapping is about confidence and swagger.
But even those guys had to lay it down in the beginning and strip the ego a little bit.
Yeah hopefully more of an understanding of what it means to be a comedian.
Thats still in the show.
That movie really helped explain to my parents what it is we do.
I did get to meet him about a year ago.
I told him that, and Id been holding on to it since 2002, so that was surreal.
And what about you?
Has writing and living within the universe of this show allowed you to discover new truths outside of it?
What Im now finding to be very beneficial is fluidity.
When I talk to comedians who are atheist, I dont stand in the place marked not atheist.
Theres something really beautiful about being fluid, because somewhere right in the middle is equanimity.
That is the fluidity that I enjoy, where its not two goalposts in a football game.
Its asking, How do you feel at this very moment?
I dont think its a flaw in the system that I experience those things.
I think that is the human experience.
Im not here to steam-clean that into some starch sheet of perfection.
Im here to feel all of that stuff.
Erik Abrissis a writer living in Los Angeles.
