Peacock premieres “Rutherford Falls” Thursday, a new series from “Good Place” creator Mike Schur about two lifelong best friends: Nathan Rutherford (“Office” alum Ed Helms), a descendant of the fictional upstate New York small-town’s founder who takes pride in his family’s history, and Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding), a member of the Minishonka Nation, who has dreams of championing her own history.
And though the initial idea for the comedy came from Schur and Helms, as soon as they started to think beyond Nathan’s half of the story, based on his experience as a white man, and into what would become Reagan’s world, they knew they wanted to bring a Native American voice in to develop that side in full.
Enter Sierra Teller Ornelas, who worked with Schur on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” and was thrilled to be asked not to just come in and “OK” a non-Native writer’s take on her culture, but be given the opportunity to build that story from scratch and construct the TV industry’s writers’ room with the most people of Native American descent.
“Not to sound negative, but I think oftentimes Native people, especially Native people who work in media, are always getting these cold calls from people where it’s like, ‘Oh, I wrote this script about Native people. We’re making it tomorrow. Can you read it and just tell me I’m a good person and then jut sign off on it?’” Ornelas, a Mexican American and member of the Navajo Nation who grew up in Tucson, Arizona, told TheWrap. “And you always kind of say no, or you try to re-write and help them. And it’s this big struggle because the ship’s already left the port. Whereas, it was just so awesome to get a call from two people that I loved working with on separate occasions and have them be like, ‘We’re at the beginning of an idea. Would you like to develop this idea and foster this story with us?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, oh my God.’”
When Ornelas, who along with “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” has previously written for comedies like “Superstore,” “Happy Endings” and “Splitting Up Together,” was approached by Helms and Schur to join them in creating the show, she says they had three elements ready: the Nathan character, the town, and the backfire effect, “this idea of what happens when people cannot let go.”
“It is this sort of like hiccup in human psychology where people — and this is like, everyone — where people are presented with irrefutable evidence that goes against a core belief, most people will not only not believe it, but they will double down on their original opinion,” Ornelas said. “It’s why we have anti-vaxxers; it’s why we have this political climate that we do. So they presented this interesting idea of what happens if a character can’t let go of certain things.”
This particular “hiccup” happens for the characters of “Rutherford Falls” when Nathan fights the moving of a historical statue in honor of his ancestor as it’s become a traffic hazard (so problematic, but in the way that many old U.S. statues are these days), and Reagan has a hard time supporting her best friend’s inability to see beyond the importance of his own history.
Ornelas, who signed an overall deal with Universal Television in 2019 to create content across broadcast, streaming and cable outlets, says she has been waiting a decade for the opportunity she has finally received with “Rutherford Falls,” which launches Thursday on Peacock.
“I’d been working in the industry for 10 years and been hoping to write something that had more specific Native content and Native themes … So when I got there [with Schur and Helms], it was great because I could say I’ve worked in museums, I’ve worked in spaces that are similar to what we’re talking about. So I just brought this host of knowledge about specifically some of the stuff that they were talking about — but also just a bunch of other stuff. I was like, hey, here are these nine other things that I think are funny and interesting. And they were like, ‘We love it! Let’s incorporate it!’ And then the three of us spent a whole other year-plus developing the idea.”
“So I think a lot of the stuff I brought in affected the stuff they’d come up with. Then they also had notes on some of the stuff I brought,” she said, adding, “It really did feel like an incredible collaboration, which I will say rarely happens.”
Readers can watch TheWrap’s exclusive sneak peek of “Rutherford Falls” via the video above.
The first season of “Rutherford Falls” launches Thursday on Peacock.
Leave a Reply