Note: This story contains spoilers from “Running Point” Season 2, Episode 10.
Coming off of the freshman season of basketball comedy “Running Point,” creators Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen knew they wanted to crank up the conflict for Kate Hudson’s Isla in Season 2, both by dialing up the screen time for Justin Theroux’s Cam — who returned from rehab not fully sober — and shaking up Isla’s love life after Season 1 left off with that love triangle.
But first, the team had to resolve the lingering situation with Max Greenfield’s Lev. Despite him having calling off his engagement to Isla in the Season 1 finale, Season 2 sees the pair work their way back together and eventually get to their long-delayed wedding weekend, satisfying Kaling’s hopes of seeing Hudson in a wedding dress.
“The characters had sort of comedically been engaged for so many years that we did want to see the wedding, or almost wedding, and a rehearsal dinner,” Kaling told TheWrap. “And because I’m a loser I wanted to see Kate Hudson in a wedding dress … I just think that’s something that some people want to see … some women want to see that — and gay men.”
The closest viewers got to seeing Isla in a wedding dress was her rehearsal dinner outfit, since she called off the wedding the night before after realizing her heart wasn’t in the right place to marry Lev, joking that at least she didn’t call it off day-of. The creators revealed they toyed with having Isla leave Lev at the altar, but ultimately decided they didn’t want it to “get that far.”
“I think that joke is very true … it is more palatable to leave someone the day before than to leave them at the actual wedding,” Barinholtz said.
While Isla bid farewell to Lev, the creators said they’re already kicking around ideas for Greenfield to return for future seasons, with Barinholtz saying “there’s no way we can’t bring him back, we love him so much.”
“We all met on ‘The Mindy Project,’ and what was so fun about that show was all the funny characters that my character got to date, and I think that’ll be really fun going into hopefully the next season is to see Kate Hudson, one of the great movie stars of all time, dating on screen,” Kaling said.
One of those prospects is, of course, Jay Brown (Jay Ellis), who, by the end of the season ended up taking a gig as the head coach and part owner of the L.A. Industry, which has just been bought by Cam and Al (Ken Marino). Kaling, Barinholtz and Stassen break down all of Season 2’s biggest moments and tease what’s next below. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: We finally get to see Jay and Isla together. How did you want to craft that moment with all the build up we’ve experienced?
Barinholtz: I had diagrammed every moment of that in my head. I had extensive sketches that I had drawn longhand of Jay and Isla making love.
Stassen: He wasn’t allowed on set.
Barinholtz: Yeah, but in the writers’ room, I was very vocal about it — a lot of visual aids, and I think when I saw it, I was very happy to see that they executed it pretty close to what I imagined, although mine was a lot dirtier, but it was very fun to watch them hook up.
Stassen: I think also we wanted to make sure there was enough distance between ending it with Isla and Lev for it to feel like appropriate, but also she had this long time friendship and attraction with Jay, so it also felt okay not to worry about it being about it being too rushed.
Last season we ended with a Waves loss, but this season we ended with a title win. Why did you want to give the Waves a win and how fun was it to shoot that scene with the champagne flowing?
Stassen: It’s funny. I feel like the actors dread the champagne scene for some reason. It is a lot of fun. It just takes forever because of all of the various
water, the rigging of the champagne bottles and the cameras and the covering of the plastic and everything. And you can’t really do a reset because you don’t have all the wardrobe doubles. It was really fun. We felt like it was great for Isla to get close and really prove herself Season 1, but to establish herself Season 2, in the face of battling Cam all season, felt important that she get to the next level and achieve something more.
Barinholtz: We’ve given her a lot of losses throughout the season, so to give her a big win at the end before the rug pull felt like the right thing to do.
Kaling: In talking to Jeanie Buss, who is an executive producer on the show, and we love her so much … she’s experienced life as an outsider and an underdog, but then there’s also what happens … the unique challenges, which we find very interesting, of being a winner that everyone hates and wants to take down, and so that felt like something really fun to explore in Season 3, is what happens when you get what you want.
One of the other things that we loved about the season was … the most fortuitous thing, which is completely not something that we had thought could happen, which was Ray Romano joining the show as the coach, because we knew we had to replace Jay, and we wanted something that was going to be very different energy. And I think we achieved that.
In the middle of the celebration we see Marcus imply he might be retiring. Will we see him exploring that more next season?
Barinholtz: Marcus is such a great character, but … it’s like Michael Jordan or Kobe. He’s just so amazing and doesn’t lose a lot, and the moments where we have Marcus being kind of frustrated [are] very, very fun, but we thought, in the midst of this big celebration to have this character realize that he might be done and to be at peace about it.
Stassen: We’re really looking forward to watching Marcus be very bad at retirement in Season 3.
Barinholtz: Why we did it is because we just want to see a world where he’s not good at something.
We leave off with Cam and Al partnering to buy LA industry with Jay becoming a coach and part owner. What can you tease about how this sets up for some conflict for next season?
Barinholtz: First of all, can I just say — I don’t toot my own horn a lot. I came up with the name the LA Industry.
Kaling: It’s a good name. We were talking about this earlier, that crosstown rivals is really fun with the Clippers and the Lakers, obviously … these guys, we grew up in Chicago.
Barinholtz: It’s a fun thing, and to put two siblings at the head of both of them feels irresistible to us. They’re literally in your town, stealing your fan base, stealing your thunder.
Kaling: Your ex-boyfriend and your older brother running a team that puts your job in jeopardy felt like a good, juicy, juicy area.
About how many seasons have you mapped out for the show?
Barinholtz: 16-17. The good thing about the show is the characters are so defined, and they’re so fun, and they have such a deep history with each other, that even if it wasn’t a workplace comedy, I feel like there’s a lot of possibility. But by taking them and putting them in this position and in this pressure cooker … we have a lot of episode ideas.
Kaling: We come from network TV too, where we did 24 episodes a season. I think we take pride in the fact that we like to shoot a lot of episodes. We like to come out every single year — we’re not trying to take two years off to go on sabbatical or whatever …. Kate is like on a roll right now. We love working with her. She’s so much fun. Set is a joy.
“Running Point” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Netflix. The series has not officially been renewed for Season 3.
