Colin From Accounts Creators on Season 2, Inspiration, and Potential Season 3
[This story contains spoilers from Colin From Accounts season two’s finale.]
Watching Paramount+’s Colin From Accounts, you might think a certain scene just can’t be real. That it’s too awkward to be a real thing that happened.
But most of the show’s moments derive from friends and family members of creators, showrunners and stars Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall, who are also married in real life.
“Oftentimes you can’t make this shit up,” Brammall tells The Hollywood Reporter when talking about the second season of the critically acclaimed comedy show. “Like, humans are very strange, contrary creatures.”
Season two, which dropped all episodes on Paramount+ on Thursday, continues to follow Ashley (Dyer) and Gordon (Brammall) in their relationship after they were somewhat forced together in season one after they both looked after a dog who was hit by Gordon’s car. Dealing with Ashley and Gordon’s families as well as navigating friendships with the show’s supporting characters, Dyer and Brammall aim to strike a balance between showcasing familial issues and situations, while also making their audience laugh.
Below, Brammall and Dyer talk about which ideas were scrapped for season two, what scenes made Dyer break and what’s in store for a potential third season. Caution: Spoilers ahead.
When you finished up season one, did you know you would be getting a season two?
PATRICK BRAMMALL: We hoped we would get a second season because as we were making it through the writing process and shooting and editing, we kept having ideas about things like, “Oh, maybe that doesn’t fit in this narrative, but maybe another time.”
HARRIET DYER: Patty had a note on his notes app on his phone with all these ideas we had.
BRAMMALL: We have all these beautiful actors and a huge ensemble, and [we thought], we’d love for these two people to meet, or whatever. So we hoped there’d be a second. We knew that we liked the show. We looked at each other at the end of season one, and we’re like, “We can’t complain. They let us do exactly the show we wanted to make.”
DYER: Yeah, anything we don’t like is our fault. But we did leave it a little ambiguous at the end of season one, because no one had seen it yet. We didn’t know if it was going to be a hit or shit. If it was like a middling at best show, that would be a really big nightmare. And we just didn’t know if they’d pick it up. But season two, we’ve kind of forced their hand.
What were some season two early ideas you threw out?
BRAMMALL: I’ll tell you that there was one in episode five when Ashley loses her phone on the train. We did have a sequence, which we ended up replacing with the one where she gets picked up by the creepy couple — Incidentally, those two actors directed the episode as well — so we ended up using that. But what we wrote initially was that Ashley ends up buying alcohol for those two teenagers who wouldn’t help her, and she ends up at a 16-year-old’s party, and ends up taking some hallucinogenic drugs. We wrote a bit where she realizes she’s taking drugs, goes to the toilet and looks in the mirror and goes, “Okay, you’re going to be fine. Just get out of here.” And she opens the door and walks out and everybody is played by toddlers.
From where do you guys draw inspiration for your characters?
DYER: All my medical stuff is from a friend, Steph, who’s a real doctor. So “Mango Man” is real… he kept presenting with mangoes in his butt, and the trying to get your foreskin back thing was real. I steal my medical buddies’ stuff, but otherwise, it’s friends of friends, family members. It’s amalgamations. For instance, Lynelle [Helen Thomson] isn’t really like my mum at all, but there’s a hint of it. There’s enough of a springboard, and then she’s like 90 percent my friend’s mum, or, you know, other people.
You guys address a lot of “woke culture” in your show. Is there ever hesitation to go to certain places? Is there something you don’t want to address on the show?
BRAMMALL: I think we feel it out as we go. Ultimately, it’s what’s funniest and also what’s most revealing. Because what I think we love about comedy and about this show, is that it reveals everyone is very human. Everybody is connected through their idiocies, through their flaws, really. So there’s a moment with Lee at the end of episode eight at the bar saying what his pronouns are, and that’s funny. But it’s also like, this guy isn’t just a caricature. Yes, he is, but he’s also a human who maybe had the choice years ago to—
DYER: He maybe would have been non-binary or gender fluid, or bisexual, or anything, but he was from a time where you better be straight or you shut up, right? And so giving that a voice, giving him a voice when it seems like he’s just a clown. I suppose it’s funny, but also we want to show the humanness on both sides.
Is there an update for season three?
BRAMMALL: We have a lot of ideas. We haven’t started plotting it yet. And in fact, we don’t have an official green light for season three. But as we said, we sort of forced the hand of our overlords to make one. We’re confident.
DYER: Patti did a clever thing of making sure that we shot that proposal fail on an iPhone, which we think in one way or another could play … if we don’t start shooting season three for 12 to 18 months or something, you can’t just set that up again and shoot. So now we have the real proposal on our iPhone. And so I feel like that’s a really cool idea that Patty had, a real golden nugget that we’ve got to put in at some point, even if it’s in a compilation of proposal fails on YouTube four years ago.
Colin From Accounts season two is now streaming all episodes on Paramount+.
What did you think of the season two finale? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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