Vice: OK, so this is some armchair analysis from yours truly, but the common thread I noticed in the episodes is the underlying fear that exists below the surface of the modern suburban existence. Am I just up in my own ass about that, or was that intentional?
Tim: I think it’s there for sure. I think our ideas are products of our environment and our life, and we’re white boys: suburban, middle-class people. So I always think about that. We’re way close to the edge of everything falling apart. It feels like that every day. How has this not turned to total shit? How are people still working at TJ Maxx and not throwing garbage cans through windows? So the relationships that characters have in our shows are generally relationships that feel like they could turn into murder at any point.
Eric: Yeah, I think one thing we’ve connected—even back in college—was that we’ve always seen the undercurrent of what was happening. There’s society, and then there’s like, you can’t believe what is really happening. I recall this one image of this poor guy who was a sign twirler at this big real estate development. It was just a guy holding a sign, and across the street, at another development, was a motorized guy with the same job. That just blew my mind—that this man had to sit there and look at that motorized version of himself the whole day. Those are the kinds of themes that we look at, and we’re like, “That’s a real fucking nightmare existence.” That’s what we’re trying to do in this new show.
