REVOLUTION: Eric Kripke Discusses Secrets Revealed and More Questions

By Liz | March 22, 2013

It’s been a long hard wait but on March 25th Revolution fans will watch as Charlie, Rachel and Miles “take back the power”. In an action-packed mid-season finale, Rachel connects with her children and Miles just as Monroe unleashes an armed chopper on the group. As Monroe shows his hand what will this mean for our revolutionary rebels? Will Randall and Grace swoop in to save the day? That would be too easy.

In a recent media conference call with Revolution showrunner Eric Kripke, we get some insight as to some character developments and storylines we can expect from the second half of season 1.

 

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Moderator: What is it about genre shows that appeals?

Eric Kripke: Coming at it as a writer it’s really fun to write genre not just because you can have some – not just because you can explore some mind-bending concepts and have lots of fun action but because you really get to discuss issues and really subversive ideas that you never would be able to get away with if you were writing a straight drama and you get to talk about just – you really get to explore some really edgy stuff about murder and death and redemption and as long as it’s hidden underneath people swinging swords at each other, you get away with it. So that’s been really fun for me because we’ve been able to – I’ve been able to say things and talk about things that I would never be able to otherwise.

Moderator: Can you talk about the challenges of having been away for awhile, how you’re going to reintroduce things to viewers and your concerns about being away, being off the air?

Eric Kripke: Sure. Yes I mean look any time you’re off the air for four months you hold your breath and you hope fans come back but we take solace and encouragement from a few things which is I think there’s a long history of genre television really working with these large breaks in between like Walking Dead or Game of Thrones and also because the second half of the season is such a different mission and quest and energy than the first half that it really does feel like a natural break. It feels like it’s its own particular season of television in that the first half was the drive to find Danny was prologue to it opening up into a much larger and more epic and exciting story.

So I think because there’s such a natural break in the storytelling, I think people will be able to jump right in and watch one recap and remind themselves where all the characters were and then dive in the way that – I won’t see Game of Thrones for literally a year and then I’ll watch one 90-second recap and be right in the middle of it.

And then finally, you know, the break gave the writers and the producers and the actors like a minute to really explore what was working about the show and what wasn’t working and how to make it better so whether we were on the air, whether we were off the air, the risk that it, you know, the inevitable risk that goes along with it, I mean that’s all true but it allowed us to make a higher quality better series. And at the end of the day that’s the thing I have to put at my first priority. The show’s better because we took the break so therefore I’m glad we took the break.

Moderator: You’re returning to an NBC that’s kind of different too. Things have sort of changed for the network in the past couple months. Any thoughts about that?

Eric Kripke: No like any good player we just keep our head down and focus on our game and I mean, look we’re coming back with The Voice and the fact is there is no bigger show on television and there’s no better lead in. And we’re very, very happy and grateful to have such a monster hit as our lead in.

And so we’re hopeful that we’ll come back strong. Again one, because the episodes are really strong and in my mind I love the first half but I think the second half is better no question. And we have a hell of a lead in so those things are all reasons for hope.

Moderator:  A question about filming in North Carolina. I wanted to see if you could talk about the advantages and the challenges of that.

Eric Kripke: The locations are stunning and haunting and we have been able to find just, you know, our production team there has been able to find just a remarkable variety of looks that we’ve had to do actually very little CG work or visual effects work or dressing them up. I mean a lot of these locations, these massive abandoned factories and power plants and we’ve been able to just move right into them and shoot them.

It’s always a little challenging being 2000 miles away from my production. You know, it would be nice to be able to, you know, be on set and have that sort of guiding hand but we have an incredible team in Wilmington. And ironically enough on this show we are absolutely reliant crucially upon technology and we’re emailing and Skypeing and sending photos and dailies are coming – dailies don’t come as film or tape or DVDs anymore, they come on our desktops and so then we’re responding quickly in real time. And you can actually get quite a lot of producing done just by sitting at your computer which is funny and ironic.   And we have amazing producers there too that are really steering the ship quite, quite well.

Moderator: Do you get to go out there much at all or are you mostly in L.A. the whole time?

Eric Kripke: I would, except they keep me handcuffed. Part of this call was to secretly ask you all for help and to tell my story. No I haven’t been actually which is a shame but we’re so jammed getting scripts out and in post-production, all of which happens in Los Angeles that unfortunately I haven’t been able to make the trip yet but I will.

Moderator: When we spoke to you at Comic-Con you told us that we would learn why the power went out to begin with fairly early on the season and you delivered on that but with this midseason premier it seems like we’ve created almost twice as many questions as we had to begin with about what’s going on. What can you tell us about what we’re going to learn about the overall mythology for the second half of the season?

Eric Kripke: Yes I mean what you just described is pretty much my MO which is start answering questions and then ask more and then answer those. And I think that’s what viewers can expect in the second half of the season which is I really favor in a really aggressive red-blooded pace of storytelling. Endless mystery is not really my (unintelligible) and anyone who’s watched any of my shows will know that.

So for me it’s about in episode 13 Rachel reveals pretty much every single thing there is to know about why the blackout happened and every time I watch that scene, that scene that is like — and she’s brilliant in it — but that scene’s a hard swallow every time because you’re like wow we’re just saying it. And it goes against many of your baked-in sure weather instincts are not to have the scene that reveals every single thing in three minutes.

But the reality is Jon Favreau was hanging out with us in the writer’s room and we were discussing the problem that as a character Rachel knew why the blackout happened and she was back in and among heroes, she wasn’t captive anymore, and we were really wrestling with the question well why wouldn’t she just tell them. And then Jon who came in and was able to provide much needed perspective, just looked at me he was like she would tell them so have her tell them. And I said yes you’re right, you’re right she would say it so she has to say. And so she does.

And so we reveal really why the blackout happened but the card I think we have up our sleeve is I think the explanation really opens the door to much greater story possibility.

I don’t think we box ourselves in a corner. I think we open a door to a whole new world. And then we ask more questions. Because for me look for me the story was never about what caused the blackout. I think it’s for me it’s like the show isn’t just based on one particular mystery, it’s based on these characters and this world and this kind of transformed landscape that they have these adventures in.

It’s risky and it’s surprising that but I think it turns out okay because there’s so many other storylines about the characters, who they were, we ask a few more questions, we pose a few new mysteries. But I will say having just I’m literally turning in the season finale later today and having now in detail seen what happens through the end of the season, I think we answer most if not all the questions that are being posed. And then we start asking new ones but that is as is my way.

Moderator:  Have you ever binge watched a show? Which show and can you talk about the experience? Like have you ever sat down and watched like a whole bunch of episodes of a show?

Eric Kripke: Oh yes. Yes for me it was I watched I think all – I think I watched every episode of The Wire within a few weeks and Game of Thrones. I actually came to Game of Thrones late and then picked up the entire first season over two or three nights. So yes no I think that’s – and I think more and more that’s how viewers are watching television, that sort of – that kind of binge viewing.

And I think, you know, just to bring it back to Revolution for a minute, I think that’s why when we come back and are airing ten in a row I think that’s another big advantage of taking a little bit of break because we don’t need to split up the storytelling once we’re back. We can just – we come back and every week people can come along that ride right until the season finale without any break. So I think that will provide a really – I think that will provide a great momentum in storytelling.

Moderator:  Do you have maybe a favorite scene or moment coming up that you can talk about without spoiling too much and if not then a favorite moment from earlier?

Eric Kripke: There is a scene between Rachel and Miles, and it hints at and we can spoil that part and say that it hints at a deeper more fraught and complicated history between Miles and Rachel and it’s all mostly done in looks and so much is conveyed with very little dialogue and it’s a thrill to watch them work.

So one is in — and I don’t want it spoiled — but the final moments of episode 11 when we come back are just such an insane neck-snapper of a twist and it’s so awful and wonderful and you kind of can’t believe you’re watching it and there’s tears and there’s knives and it’s just awesome. And then I would say in the first run when Rachel ganks Dr. Jaffe with the screwdriver. That’s like a personal favorite in the writer’s room like we love that. She just jabs him in the chest and then says to Monroe, “Now you need me.”

This like badass chick with a screwdriver and that was really funny and awesome and surprising and brutal and it was just great. We talk a lot about in the writer’s room how we want to do this – maybe it will be a webisode, we’ll probably never do it but we call it like the short sad life of Dr. Jaffe and how he like Rachel felt, I mean it’s just funny, I mean I love it. I love that we have such a complicated lead character and a complicated hero who basically like provides intel, gets the guy captured, gets him in front of Monroe and then to apologize stabs him in the chest with a screwdriver.

Moderator: I just wanted to ask you Eric last time I talked to you I had asked you about Grace and you had said that she was going to be a bigger part of the storyline in the second half of the season. Can you talk at all about that?

Eric Kripke: Yes that’s true. I mean, we see a glimpse of her or you’ve all seen a glimpse of her already at the end of episode seven and episode eight to reveal that – where we reveal that Randall has brought her to this kind of – to this particularly mysterious location.

And really starting with episode 11 we start to reveal what that place is, why Randall has brought her there, what he wants from her and then the story progresses from there. But the location – the place where they are really starts to become important to story to the point where it starts to have its own gravitational pull in the story, not literally, figuratively, and every character starts getting drawn closer and closer towards it because it’s such an important location and because what Grace is doing there is so important.

Moderator: So Eric in my opinion I think that your show is a lot better than some of the other “event programs” that have debuted on network in the past couple of seasons but in your opinion why do you think Revolution has worked where those shows didn’t?

Eric Kripke: Well let me preface this by saying any writer who knows why his stuff works is lying. But I have my theories but mostly I’m just grateful that people seem to be connecting with it and I’m greatly appreciative that they’re watching is mostly my reaction and response to that question.

As to why, you know, my theory or my hope is because we actually put the – yes it’s a genre show but we try very hard to put the genre on the backburner and put the characters front and center. And our focus in the writer’s room is not what’s the trippy mind-bending concept although we certainly love those, our focus is well how do those concepts bring out new dimensions of our characters and how do we make it as emotional as possible and how do we make these characters as fraught and complicated and tortured as possible.

Because look here’s the truth of episodic television which is you really want every episode – you want every episode’s storyline to be great but the reality is the sheer volume of work means that some are great and some of your stories as a writer suck out loud. But if the characters take and the actors create amazing characters which I think they’re doing, then viewers get invested. I don’t think they get invested in any particular storyline, they get invested in the characters. And if the characters are working then the series works. And conversely it doesn’t matter how cool your concept is if the characters aren’t appealing or relatable to the audience then it will never work.

I used to say this a lot to making a reference to Lost when I was talking to J. J. and Bryan and all the Bad Robot guys in the beginning, we talked about it a lot and what I said to them and they totally agreed and I think it’s why Lost worked so well was we said look I’m interested in, I’m fascinated by what’s on that island but that’s not why I’m watching, I’m watching for Matthew Fox and Elizabeth and John Locke and all the characters and they’re the ones that you love and that’s why that show was so successful and hopefully Revolution is trying to – hopefully Revolution is coming close to approximating that same formula.

Moderator: What’s been the most challenging for Revolution?

Eric Kripke: I would say for me it’s the story breaks are remarkably challenging. It’s definitely very, very rewarding but it’s also the most difficult to show I’ve ever written for. There’s so many characters, there’s so many storylines. They all have to hit the targets of being emotional and true and honest and action packed and exciting and genre and it’s a son of a bitch to break this show.

And I can’t tell you how many times we’ve gotten an entire story up and then I went back and read it over — we put them on these giant dry erase boards — and we’d show back up in the morning and read it over and literally just erase the whole thing and the writer’s come in and they see the empty board and their faces fall and it’s so tragic and it happens so often. And we say okay let’s go back, let’s talk about what we want this episode to be. Let’s go back to theme and then do it all over again. But they’re all in and we’re all excited to do it because we want it to be great and everybody really cares and hopefully the viewers will see that in the payoff because we really take very meticulous care with these stories.

And then you should see me – because it’s just my show-running style where I’ll act out every part as we’re working through the scenes. I’ve always threatened to have like a DVD special features which is like a video of me acting out the part with how the actor ended up doing it professionally.

But I will say this that in my version of the performance I would say every other word is fuck or shit and so my version of Revolution is much more R rated and blue and it’s much more like as if David Mamet had written Revolution than what ends up on the screen, like a lot of the fuck and shit in the writer’s room becomes hell and damn by the time it gets to the screen. I’m telling you it’s a sight to see.

Moderator: Eric I have a question about Tracy and JD’s characters. I seem to be rooting for a romance at the beginning of last season and will we see anything develop?

Eric Kripke: Yes we definitely will. JD’s character is named Jason, it was Nate, but his real name is Jason. Jason goes through some seismic shifts with his father, who’s Giancarlo, with his relationship with the militia and that Charlie has a front seat to a lot of those really dramatic turns in that there is this sort of static friction between the both of them that draws them closer. And then we blow it all up because these types of relationships in these types of shows are about the push/pull and about the friction of will they get together or won’t they and what obstacles do they have to overcome.

Moderator: Going back to the notion of binge viewing and the Lost factor, how important was it for a lot of questions to be answered now at this point in time? Was there a sense of urgency?

Eric Kripke: I certainly felt having gone back and having a had a minute to go back and analyze the first ten episodes I thought our pace of mythology reveals was probably a tiny bit slow. At the time you’re so focused on establishing character and establishing world and especially on a genre show where it’s an entirely new world with new rules and you spend a lot of time making sure that you’ve got those straight and that you’re setting it all up properly.

But once I looked back at all the completed episodes if I had a criticism in the storytelling it was that I was feeling I think the same impatience that the audience was feeling over the last couple and they were good stories and good episodes but I had that kind of vibe of like okay get to it, get to Danny, let’s see what’s going on, let’s get to the next part, I’m ready, I get it, let’s do this thing. And once we realized that then the writers sort of collectively looked at each other for the second half and said, “Okay let’s course correct and let’s blow the doors off it and let’s get everybody together.

And there’s probably a lot of answers that we’re giving in the second half that probably could have waiting until season two but we felt that we should smoke them if we’ve got them and we knew what some of our answers were and we knew that we had these big reveals up our sleeve and they’re just wasn’t any reason to withhold them. So we just started spending our coin and I think the episodes reflect that.

I think you’ll look at the second half and there’s probably no one episode that doesn’t have at least one big moment that either unveils more mythology or is a seminal moment in one of the character’s lives that transforms them and we really work hard to make sure there’s something like that in every episode.

Moderator: So I wanted to know a little bit about the dynamic with Rachel and Charlie and actually just the family dynamic as you guys move forward to this back part of the season. Obviously Danny is going to have a huge impact on that but then how do Miles and Charlie and Rachel really kind of – is it a lot of conflict that’s going to take awhile for them to kind of gel as a unit or will they come to some kind of even ground in a relatively short amount of time.

Eric Kripke: I think there will be lots of conflict. I mean I think for us it’s really the three of them is such a center of gravity for the show and of the Mathesons and the show is really at its heart a family show and the issues we discuss and the thematics we explore are much more about family than they’re about anything else and can this family stay together in the face of these overwhelming odds.

And if you had to make a choice between for instance revenge or keeping your family safe, if you had to make a choice between fighting for the greater good or protecting your children, these are the types of questions and conflicts we really explore on the show. And I think between all three of them there’s a very rich amount of material to play both in the character histories and the beautiful job that the actors are doing.

And Rachel and Miles have a very complicated history which we’ll begin to unveil and explore and more and more in the second half. I think Rachel and Charlie have a very complicated present because Rachel hasn’t been in her children’s lives for years and now suddenly she’s coming back and both mother and children have expectation as to how it’s all going to go but of course it doesn’t go at all like that because they’re different people and they’re basically strangers. And even though you don’t want to feel resentment you can’t help but feel resentment and you don’t want to feel frustration but you can’t help but feel frustration and we want to play it. And the actors are beautifully playing it in a very realistic way of what this reunion would be like which is it wouldn’t be all wine and roses, it would be actually very painful and awkward and complicated.

But I think what’s really important and I think all of these characters’ saving graces are that they’re all really trying and that they really want to overcome those obstacles and they really want to be a close family and they really want to correct the mistakes of their past and they’re not always successful and sometimes they make newer and even worse mistakes but they’re always really trying. And I think that’s really important.

I think that’s what makes them all – that’s why I’m rooting for all of them and that’s why I love all of them because they all want to be better and they all want to overcome their pasts and for me if there’s a major thematic on the show it’s that which is trying is the thing and that we’ll all be – it’s like we might not be able to make the world a better place when it’s all said and done but if everyone keeps trying then I think that’s what important and we try to reflect that in the characters as well.

Moderator: I was wondering first Eric do you see the show at all as a warning or a cautionary tale or sorts?

Eric Kripke: Oh yes it is. Yes no I think we are as a culture really over reliant on technology. I think it used to be a convenience and now it’s a necessity and I think we are dangerously separated from our food and water supplies. I think very few of us would know what to really do in any kind of calamity, and how to find your children and how to provide the basic necessities of survival. And you know, I think this show really, you know, hopefully makes a few people think about that.

But even on a more emotional level, you know, it’s a really interesting age we’re living in now because, concurrently, I don’t think we as a culture we’ve ever been more connected and at the same time have ever felt more alone. And I think it’s because everybody is sort of walking around with their smartphones.

And there’s just been such a seismic shift just over the last couple of years. It’s happened so quickly that everyone has basically like plugged into like the first generation matrix and they’re so focused on the world that is on their screen, that they’re not looking up and seeing the world around them and connecting in the moment with the people who are literally standing across from them. And I’m very guilty of it too, I mean everybody is. But I’m as bad as anybody with it.

But, you know, yet the other thing I think we think about this world because it’s not all about, you know, it’s not just despotic, it’s not this brutal hard scrabble. You know, we’re not making the road here.

And I think one of the points we want to make is that human connection in the absence of technology would probably flourish. And if we can make people think about that if we can, you know, make people maybe unplug from their smartphones for a minute and connect with their families and fight for your family, then you know, that would be the best possible outcome.

But that’s all like high solute and douche bag shit to say. And mostly, you know, I just hope people enjoy the characters and dig the sword fights.

 

Revolution returns March 25th at 10/9c on NBC, with The Stand.