SPOILER ALERT! This story contains plot points from the season two season premiere of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage on CBS.
Tension at the tire store: Now that Jim McAllister (Will Sasso) has officially retired from peddling rubber, Georgie (Montana Jordan) and Ruben (Jessie Prez) are finding that it’s not so easy run a business together — especially since they can’t seem to agree on anything.
Here, showrunner Steve Holland addresses the conflict between the two tire salesmen while reflecting on what he and the other writers learned from season one of the Young Sheldon spinoff. More importantly, when can viewers expect the inevitable Georgie and Mandy divorce?
DEADLINE Before we address the premiere, can you talk about what lessons you might have learned from your freshman season?
STEVE HOLLAND You know, honestly, we had a pretty smooth season, but I think one of the things we realized was that it was tricky to keep Ruben and the store fully integrated into the story. That was part of our thinking behind having Ruben and Georgie buy the store together. We could bring those two worlds together so it wasn’t just a satellite story. DEADLINE Do you feel like all the appearances by the Young Sheldon characters really mattered?
HOLLAND We talked about it a lot. We obviously wanted to make sure the show stood on its own and the show was about Georgie and Mandy and the McAllisters. But it’s also a world that people love. We had these characters who were part of the family, so it would’ve felt weirder to exclude them. It would’ve been strange to have a show sitting in the same town but we never see Georgie’s mom or sister. It felt very natural to include them, but it was always in the forefront of our minds to make sure that they were servicing our characters.
DEADLINE So we will still see them in the future?
HOLLAND Absolutely. Yes.
DEADLINE So after one season of multi-cam work, do you miss the single camera format?
HOLLAND Multi-cam is where I came up. It’s my roots in this business. Single camera is fun and different. You can tell stories in a different way which is freeing sometimes, but the grind of single camera production is way worse than multi-cam production so it’s a trade-off. There’s nothing quite like putting on a show in front of a live audience every week. It’s as close to theater as you can get in TV and as a writer, you’re getting real feedback in real time.DEADLINE How have your audiences been? Are they former Young Sheldon fans?
HOLLAND Yeah, I think so. You can tell this season that they’re now fans of this show as well. They know these characters so much that you can get a laugh on a character beat that you know isn’t necessarily a joke. That’s been really rewarding to see. I think probably at first they were showing up because they were Young Sheldon or The Big Bang Theory fans and now I feel like they show up because they’re Georgie and Mandy fans.
DEADLINE Why is Georgie so arrogant toward Ruben. Is he overcompensating for his insecurities?
HOLLAND I don’t know if he’s arrogant towards Ruben, but he is arrogant in his own abilities and he’s very ambitious. He’s young enough that his jump first and look later [attitude] has always worked out well so he hasn’t gotten the smackdown that maybe at some point he’s gonna need in life. He just thinks everything always works out for him so he’s arrogant in the way that he assumes his way is right.
DEADLINE What is the source of tension between Georgie and Ruben?
HOLLAND Ruben has obviously been there a lot longer and knows the business more. He thinks he should be heard and Georgie is young and brash and full of ideas. Ruben is a little bit older and more mature. He doesn’t want to take stupid chances.
DEADLINE Why doesn’t Jim return and work for them? Or do you want to explore his retirement life, instead?
HOLLAND We’re actually breaking a story now where Jim is bored with retirement. The idea of maybe going back part-time comes up. That’s an interesting thing because he can be an employee at a store he once owned and is now working for people who he trained and who are half his age.
DEADLINE What do you have planned for Connor McAllister, played by Dougie Baldwin?
HOLLAND Connor actually has a couple of big changes on the horizon. They kind of sent him off to find his place in the world and so he can figure out a goal and a dream that he wants to pursue.
DEADLINE What can we expect for Mandy?
HOLLAND Obviously she’s working with her ex-boyfriend Scott (Christopher Gorman) and that doesn’t sit great with Georgie. There’s an episode coming up where she’s going out of town to cover a weather story and Scott is going with her. Georgie is really unhappy that she’s going out of town, just as Mandy starts to get some recognition from her weather job. Jealousy is something we haven’t really dealt that much with before but he’s a young guy and he hasn’t had a lot of relationship experience. Georgie is starting to experience jealousy for the first time.
DEADLINE Do you already know when Georgie and Mandy’s divorce will be?
HOLLAND I don’t. I think it’s good. We know some things that are floating out there. It’s not like how it was with Young Sheldon. We knew when George Sr. died. It was when Sheldon was 14 before he went to Cal Tech. We know some things that are going to happen in the story of Georgie, but we don’t know when. That gives us a lot of freedom to sort our way through and find a way to get those points in a way that will feel natural and surprising. The fact that you know it’s gonna happen is a like a sword hanging over their relationship. You don’t know when, but you know at some point it’s gonna drop.
The post ‘Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage’: Showrunner Steve Holland Previews Season 2 & When Viewers Can Expect The Inevitable Divorce appeared first on Deadline.
