My first response to the prospect of writing the concluding episode of Tremontaine was:“Oh, good! I can kill everyone off after making them suffer emotionally! What fun!”My collaborators patiently explained that you don’t do that in TV series, whose aesthetic we are trying to emulate: “People get attached to characters. They want to see what happens to them next.”“But I’m through with them!” I said querulously. “We’ve done them already! Can’t we just get a bunch of new ones?”“No.”So I waited until Episodes 11 and 12 came in from Alaya and Malinda . . . knowing that all I had to do was read them and get inspired. And I did, and I was. I started to see where this was taking us: everyone could be miserable, yet alive! But as Joel Derfner kindly explained: “We’ve got enough misery built in. You have to leave at least one happy couple. You can destroy them next season, if you must.”Of course, Malinda left me with a cliff-hanger at the end of Ep.12: Kaab asks the Duchess Tremontaine a vital question, and: KA-BOOM. THE END. No answer from Diane. Ball in my court. I thought Malinda was just messing with me; but it turns out we had agreed to that in some long-ago, bagel-and-chocolate-filled Brainstorm Meeting in my living room.So I gracefully began Ep. 13 by eliding over Diane’s answer, instead cutting straight to Vincent and Tess worrying about Kaab. From Vincent’s viewpoint. Because I’d already decided he’s going to be a Major Character next year. After all, we already know that he fights unusually well, with a style no one in Riverside recognizes; that’s he’s crazy enough about Kaab to teach her the sword and guard her girlfriend for free. . . . So why not just start there, and then kind of back-mention that Kaab had gotten what she wanted and was walking out of Tremontaine House very pleased with herself?Everyone said that draft sucked. They told me I had to take up the Malinda Kaab/Diane challenge, and start the story there. So (after some grumbling that no one understood the subtlety of my art), I wrote the damn scene. And it was fun! ‘Cause who doesn’t love writing the two fiercest adversaries of the series in their ultimate duel? Plus, by switching to Kaab’s viewpoint in my episode, we could give the readers an extra angle. And besides, I realized when I re-read my original draft, my team was right. It wasn’t time to pull focus away from the Kaab/Diane duel yet.And so I proceeded, guided equally by instinct and guile. I made heavy notes on the last two episodes, to make sure the facts were right and the loose ends tied up. I followed emotional threads that the other authors had been building over the previous twelve episodes, and tautened them until they thrummed when touched – usually with sexual tension brought to, um, fruition. Which was even more fun: it was like I was writing my own fanfic! Characters and situation all nicely set up for me, and all I had to do was write scenes where they maybe fucked and definitely talked a lot.Instinct and Guile served me well as I started slipping in hints as to who and what might be important next season. (It was also around this time that I started watching – and becoming obsessed with - Season 1 of Penny Dreadful, and made swift advances in my understanding of the TV aesthetic.)I did get to introduce a couple of new characters: Micah’s new math teacher, Doctor Goodell, first mentioned by Alaya, I believe; he appeared quite clearly to me as I wrote that scene, a mix of Schmendrick the Magician and our friend the TransMedia guru Henry Jenkins. And the “deaf mute” nurse who goes off with Duke William to Highcombe . . . well, she came to me very clearly one day (again, prompted by Malinda’s episode with Diane telling Wickfield that there would be a nurse). It figures Diane would hire one who could neither hear William’s prophetic maunderings nor tell anyone what she observed. But William thinks she’s more than she appears, and there is a lot of truth in his madness, is there not?I wrote it all without consulting any notes from that long-ago brainstorm, because I didn’t have any. So I was delighted to find that the logic of the first 12 episodes had sent me pretty much to where we’d all agreed to turn up anyway. With one exception: The original series outline had been for Rafe to accept a position in Diane’s household, against all his principles, so he could be well-placed to rescue Will. However, (a) I jumped the gun by putting in scenes where that sort of happens in Ep. 13; (b) I realized that staff in Tremontaine House were likely to know where the duke was “recovering,” so it would be too easy for Rafe to find that out if he worked there.And besides, I have plans for a new character to start working for the Duchess Tremontaine . . . . See you next year!
