How Will We Survive Post-"Portlandia"?

The only interruption on this day was for a special presentation in North Portland’s Arbor Lodge Park by the Oregon Governor's Office of Film and Television (see images at top and bottom).  There were meaningful speeches, colorful cupcakes and the unveiling of a commemorative Portlandia plaque that would hang in Portland City Hall.  The local press turned out in droves, along with a few national outlets, including MediaVillage.  Series creators, producers and stars Carrie Brownstein (pictured above) and Fred Armisen (pictured below with guest star Kumail Nanjiani) were on hand, as cool, calm and collected as ever despite the pressures of bringing their show to an end on schedule.

Asked about the theme of the final season, Brownstein recalled looking at index cards filled with ideas for sketches and stories plastered on a large board in the Portlandia writers’ room.  “I remember when we were looking up at the board … there was a permeating anxiety in so many of the sketches that we were just like, let’s give up,” she said.  “Without having looked for a coherent theme there was definitely an underpinning of doom, for sure.  It is the end of the dream.”  Doom, indeed.  On that day they were filming a sequence they were referring to as the “disaster sketch” (see image below).

“Why the feeling of doom?” a reporter asked.

“You don’t feel impending doom?” Brownstein replied in an exaggerated fashion as the crowd burst into laughter.

“And after this week … nature!”  Armisen added, referring to the fires.

It was clear that Brownstein and Armisen understand how much Portlandia means to people and how sad they will be when it comes to an end.  “In the last year I’ve had more people than ever thank me for making them laugh,” Brownstein said.  “I do realize that people need that now. They need to laugh.  That’s the only thing that kind of hurts about going out.

“People would say their mother, sister, friend had cancer and the only thing that made them laugh in the hospital was our show,” she continued.  “And now I just feel like there is a cancer on America.  All of a sudden people are like, ‘Wow, I guess we just really needed to laugh!’  I feel the same way.  That physical feeling of relief is a momentary distraction.  Even though I said the dream is dead there is so much laughter and silliness in this final season … nothing we do is ever separate from that sense of absurdity and that desire to look at things through a lens like that.”

Brownstein revealed that the significance of the show ending first hit her when an emotional Kyle MacLachlan, who plays the mayor of the title city and has appeared in every season since the first, filmed his final scene.  It is going to hit IFC hard, as well.  On Thursday of this week the fourth of the final season’s 10 episodes will premiere; once the fifth episode is telecast the countdown to the end will officially begin.

Portlandia has been the network’s signature show for years, and many of the executives there have been involved since day one – especially Senior Vice President of Original Programming Christine Lubrano.  Like many of the show's fans she agrees that the creative team always had an uncanny knack for figuring out what the future held.  “Portlandia has a way of predicting the future that is scary,” she told MediaVillage in a recent interview.  “The What About Men sketch, for example (image below).  They wrote it long before it was the issue that it is today.

“They have been wonderful predictors of our social climate,” she continued.  “I call it ‘pre-zeitgeist.’  On top of being really cool people, the process by which Fred and Carrie conceive each season allows that predictive quality to come into play.”

Lubrano said that she feels the show has “evolved” season by season, with each one taking on “larger thematics.”  One season addressed finance, another the battle of the sexes.  “Everyone who has worked on the show has evolved,” she explained.  “Carrie has directed, Fred has directed, members of the crew have taken on larger roles.”

Looking back, Lubrano said she found it “surprising that a sketch show can be so powerful.”  Looking forward she admitted, “I was having a hard time facing the reality [of the show ending].”  And then something very Portlandia happened.  She was in an Anthropologie store and heard the show’s theme song playing on the sound system.  “The song has been the same since Episode 1,” she said.  “It hit me then.  It’s over.  But the wonderful thing is, it will last forever.”

With so many reboots of shows filling up network and streaming schedules it seems only natural that people are already wondering if Portlandia will return one day, even in another form, such as a movie or a stage show.

“Every time anyone announces the end of anything, there they are five years later doing some other verison of it,” Armisen cautioned reporters on that hazy day in Portland.  “So many shows do special announcements that are the worst, like ‘this is it!’”

“It’s like the only reason to bury something is to resurrect it,” Brownstein added.  “But if you just get out of that cycle you can do whatever you want.”

“It feels right having control over how something will end, as opposed to it going off the rails,” Armisen continued.  “That’s all it is.  Who knows what the future holds?  You can write [that it is ending], but dot, dot, dot.”

Brownstein said at the time that the last scene of the last episode was planned but was subject to change.  “We would never leave on a down note,” she insisted.  “That would be cynical. This show is not cynical.  I feel like cynicism is pretty toxic, and it’s harder than ever to circumvent it.

“I would hate to inflict that upon an audience, just for the sake of being high-minded or poignant,” she concluded.  “We’ll leave people feeling good.”

And on that note, here's an exclusive photo of an informative wall hanging in what used to be the prop room for Portlandia.

Photos by Ed Martin

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