The creators and cast of the HBO Max series open up to ET about the long-awaited new season.
After debuting to critical acclaim, The Other Two ups the laughs in its long-awaited, sophomore season now streaming on HBO Max. Created by Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, the series tells the story of two siblings, Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne Yorke), struggling to make it in New York while their teenage brother, Chase (Case Walker), catapults to fame after going viral on the internet. Season 2 ups the ante with their mother, Pat (Molly Shannon), striking out on her own and landing a hugely popular daytime talk show.
“Her as Pat the talk show host this season is so good and funny,” Tarver says, with Yorke adding, “Molly is so good at being Pat the talk show host that you sort of forget that she’s Molly Shannon.”
While speaking with ET, the creators as well as Tarver and Yorke explain why they moved Shannon’s character to the center and how the second famous family member pushes Cary and Brooke’s ambitions even further.
“We wanted to stay true to our characters and to the tone of the show, but we didn’t want to do the same thing over again,” Schneider says, referring to Cary and Brooke’s antics that followed Chase’s instafame. “So this season, their mom has her hit daytime talk show, and they’re sort of the other two to her.”
But not wanting to repeat that “other two” status, Schneider continues, “We follow them as they are really galvanized to a breakout of that dynamic and figure out their own lives, their own successes and making a place for themselves in the world.”
While Tarver and Yorke are still the main stars of the series, with both delivering emotionally layered and even stronger performances than in the first season, the series wisely takes advantage of Shannon’s late-career renaissance that first started when she appeared in Kelly’s 2016 film, Other People.
Since then, the former Saturday Night Live staple, who famously played the excited 50-year-old Sally O’Malley, has delivered one standout performance after the next in the Wet Hot American Summer spinoffs, Divorce, this summer’s The White Lotus as well as in season 1 of The Other Two.
“Molly Shannon is incredible and it’s like, ‘If you have her, you’ve got to use her,’ you know what I mean? She’s so funny,” Kelly says, adding that making her character a talk show host felt like a no-brainer. “Because we have already written a first season of television, we know our characters really well, our actors and their voices as well. So it felt fun to be able to use Molly Shannon’s voice for that season 2.”
Because of that, they were “definitely affectations and things that she says and the attitude that she has that we have used for Pat,” Schneider says, adding that when she and Kelly were both head writers for Saturday Night Live, “we would always write a lot of mom games and mom characters. That’s just what we like to write. We know it very deeply and we’ve experienced it.”
Kelly adds, “It’s just such a voice we know and love.”
And how Pat’s success affects Cary and Brooke plays out very differently, with the former the subject of his mother’s adoration and constant oversharing on TV. One of her admissions about his love life kickstarts a commitment he may otherwise never have pursued on his own.
“He’s in a relationship this season. And I think like in the first season, he was really struggling with coming out later in life and how that affected him emotionally. He was secretly dating and hooking up with his straight roommate and kind of putting himself in these situations that were not healthy for him,” Tarver explains. “And in the second season, he’s got a boyfriend. And he feels like he’s making strides in that sense.”
Meanwhile, Brooke finds herself at odds with wanting to make it as a music manager after her brief experience on Chase’s team versus working for her mother.
After Chase decides to quit music so he can attend college, Yorke says Brooke “has to quickly pivot. And she thinks that she’s going to be this cool music manager but she ends up managing her mom,” much to her chagrin.
But, of course, that’s not where things end for either of them, as they both continue on their journey of figuring out what success looks like to them. “At the end of the day, crazy things will happen to them. But, you know, being able to connect is what they realize is most important. That continues to be the lesson,” Yorke says. “And I think Brooke and Carrie both experience that.”
“Brooke and Cary are trying to figure out who they are and there’s even more fuel to the flame this season,” Tarver adds.
The Other Two premieres Aug. 26 with two episodes on HBO Max, and then continues with two episodes weekly until Sept. 23.
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