Dropout's 'Game Changer' finale: Sam Reich reveals the secrets of 'Last Talent Standing'

How would you like to die

This episode, I'm going to say, it is diabolical in that. I don't think I've experienced this level of anxiety on a dropout show since Total Forgiveness

I am going to barf. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's so fair

You know, when I was watching the rough cut, Christy, I had that experience too, where I was like

I have never so badly not wanted people to fail. Sure. And yet they needed to, or we were going to go all night

It did seem like it took a while. Oh, it took a while

There's no doubt about that. I think there is kind of like a, well, what does diabolical mean when you're dealing with

relatively soft people? like sure sure this is the closest we've gotten to squid games but of course uh it is

one percent as diabolical as squid games are and and the way in which it's diabolical

is just in the uh performance pressure it's putting on the cast so i want to talk about that

because like you bring out 23 incredibly capable people that we have seen doing cool things across

across dropout shows, including Game Changer, most specifically Game Changer. And then you bring out Kumail, Jean-Marco, and Maria

I would like to hear a little bit about your thought process when you were picking judges. Because Jean-Marco feels like he was brought in, as you mentioned in the episode

like as Simon Cowell, like as the heel. Yeah, I don't think Jean-Marco will mind me saying this

He was going to be a contestant in the episode and had no idea what the creative was

and after we had booked Kamail and Maria I realized that they were both very nice

and that I had almost like a creative problem I needed to solve for insofar as like I needed

someone there with a little bit more edge and I knew that John Marco had what it took

so he got upgraded from player to judge uh it makes more sense to me that he jumped into the

group dance now when oscar like taught people choreography yeah oh 100 and john marco's like

been so incredibly game for whatever we've thrown at him god bless so kamail like i ran into kamail

in the last few years at the dynasty typewriter and he had all sorts of nice things to say about

dropout. And he, if you don't know this, used to do a huge amount of random college humor things

back in the day. I mean, this was before his career exploded. So he did live shows for us at UCB. He

did like our video game, let's play show. But I think he and I were both hankering for a reunion

of some kind. This was by the way, meaningly before I knew he was on Taskmaster before anyone

knew he was on Taskmaster. So that's like a complete and total coincidence. And then Maria

I mean, we've all had comedy crushes on Maria forever and ever and ever just sort of like an

alt comedy goddess. It was important for me to have someone up there who was going to really

appreciate the weird that this episode was inevitably going to bring forward in everybody

And boy, did she I mean, I think the tension with Maria was that she appreciated so much that she

wanted to send everyone through well it's so fascinating because um i like we've gotten to

talk to maria bam for that episode's gonna run later very excited about that but um she also just

is clearly such an influence to the people on stage that when like they she's revealed you

guys cut to a wide shot and it seems like everyone is is like blown away by that reveal

for sure for sure big big maria fans uh among the dropout cast uh without a doubt

well speaking to the people you brought together for players i'm curious how you guys came to like

it's 23 players right yeah it's almost as if there should have been 25 and two dropped out

oh no i just think you guys have done like a lot of mathing that's how people say that the only

math we did is not replacing them and the reason why we didn't replace them is because we were so

afraid of the episode running long anyway which you'll you'll know this uh when you watch the the

bts there were game mechanics that we fully had to abandon mid-episode because this was running so

long sure and and we should have guessed that like the the tension in my job as host is always do I go forward with some version of a plan or do I let what my players organically want to do

as clowns come out? I don't think I'm crazy. And I will always decide the latter

Like I'm always more interested in what they want to do spontaneously than I am any designs that I have in my head

So here's the plan. You're all here because you're the best of the best

What is this game? But the original game design here was in between every round, there was a mini game where they all competed in the same talent

So I think we had like a jazz scat off. We had like best Scottish accent

So producers were doing math, you know, in the days like leading up to the shoot

And everyone was telling me this episode was going to be too long

And me in my usual state of denial was like, I'm sure it'll work out one way or the other

But particularly when two people were dropped out, I was like, OK, let's just see this as a sign and not replace them

And then I'm curious about like, because because just putting all this together, what would have happened if like the first round they don't have props

The second round they discover the boxes have props. But rewatching it, I was like, you have people crawling all over those

What if somebody had discovered ahead of time that those boxes had props

we uh were fully prepared for that to happen um and and in fact uh if it had been a natural

discovery we would have just allowed for them to start hauling things out of boxes earlier

um our cast despite their chaotic tendencies are so rooting for the show to be successful

that many of them did break that paper in advance not realizing that they were supposed to

and they were like sidebarring with our production designer chloe in between takes being like i'm so

sorry i hate to say this like i i tore the paper is that okay and chloe had to be like fine it's fine

because the other thing i noticed re-watching is that the judges panels look like those boxes

torn open so i re-watching it was like oh is that a clue that was a clue good for you christy

that you know you're exactly right that was like a little visual clue i was putting uh there for the

cast uh in case they would take it as a as a clue and you know we're always this tension always

exists with game changer episodes sometimes that tension sort of uh floats to the surface

more or less and it has to do with like okay these game mechanics that we've set up to what

extent are they playing out organically to what extent do we need to force our hand if at all

but suffice it to say that like episodes take a lot of shape mid episode

more more than you would ever imagine another example of that from this season is

this idea at the end of what's the catch that whatever the final catch they earn be appended

anywhere the only reason we made that up in the moment is we realized it would create a funnier

outcome we could have faked this like we are writing on the fly plenty we're everybody's

improvising up there even me i mean and what what what a final what a final catch to have

that was very funny and as someone who loves karaoke with 90s music specifically that that

was very fun for me oh for sure i truly feel like if you did a karaoke night without iris

it's just not really complete it's kind of i mean i totally agree i mean now it'll be the context of

iris will be forever changed uh in my mind from nicholas cage and meg ryan city of angels which

was my association with it before to now did you know it's in the movie companion and kind of like

a reference the character's name is iris and they play it when they like reveal her and the filmmaker

did admit that it was kind of like a little bit of an odd city of angels and having jack quaid who

is my guy and son in the movie and never seen city of angels which that's fair that might not

be a movie that if that were my mom i'd see that's that's totally fair i think there's i mean i've

never read one of my dad's books either like there is a general reluctance to participate in the work

of our parents oh i'm also just so fascinated by like when putting together this cast like i know

you've said before you send out an email usually when you're kind of like planning for the next season to kind of get some ideas of like what might work or what might could happen

Did you send out an email being like, who has hidden talents? Was that like part of the math on this

You know, not who has hidden talents, but who is willing to participate in an episode

with that many contestants You know I think that doesn necessarily cater to every performer flavor

Sure. Some of, you know, being on Game Changer, if not being on Dropout, is like liking your time in the spotlight

And here, you are going to have like your, whatever it is, 15 seconds of fame and then risk getting voted out

and like if you're not prepared for that on some level you could cause hurt feelings which is the

last thing that i want um so i i needed to be working with people that i knew would would uh

had had at least sort of consented to the theoretical uh sort of qualities of being

in an episode with like 25 contestants so that was sure the ask was like what about being among

like a ton a ton of people well also like really talented people also with like a situation in which

you were not really i mean people did find their way into working collaboratively which i thought was a smart kind of make some noise move um but also then yeah you're in front of like maria

bamford which has to be as several have said very intimidating oh my god caitlin who uh

also helps me out around the house um who is makes it to like spoiler alert yeah yeah like top top

five maria bamford is her idol and i did not tell her that she would be performing for her that day

and you know she's enough like outside the dropout of hers at least up until this season of the show

that like she doesn't have a lot of like social inroads with anyone up there either so that's like

super intimidating but you know you do like part of the art of the show uh part of the art of game

changer is we are creating a high stakes performance atmosphere where people have to think

on their feet whether or not they have to improvise on their feet or whether or not they have to solve

puzzles on their feet or some combination therein or figure out how not to get sued by disney which

was a surprise for instance oh my god i love that moment so like if zach had just sung the song i'm

not convinced he would have gotten through that round um it was the fact that he improvised so

well like stakes are a part of it you know that that heart in your mouth moment of like what is

this performer going to do here um what would you know as an audience member like watching it

what would i do if i had to show off a talent genuinely my question if you had gotten pulled

into it what would your move have been i mean i hate to say it christy but i got lots of tricks

up my sleeve whether right because you know you're like into magic and stuff right yeah so i've got

card tricks i can juggle diablo i can play three instruments i you know like i i sort of hate to

say this but i'm like you know i'm right up there with erica in terms of amount of things that i've

got none of my hobbies translated that way so watching this i was just having like a quiet

secondhand panic attack because you don't desperately need attention or you didn't

spend your first like 20 years on the planet developing party tricks it just takes different

forms okay it's stuff that doesn't play well in a minute time on stage um with no props good lord

um i also want to talk about kaylin's kind of like hero arc this season though because this

is the second time that you kind of surprised her with being a big part of the show we wanted one

more layer of this no pressure but you're playing for all three teams what so i'd like to hear about

that and how that kind of came about yeah i mean here i didn't know that she would end up being

such a a big part in the episode but caitlin you know uh quite apart from uh in my uh uh my wife and

my house manager uh is someone we have known for a long time um and is an incredibly funny and up

and coming sort of clown in the la clown scene works with a four-person clown troop that's

phenomenally funny they were just at the edinburgh fringe with with their show and uh is a stand-up

although like uh her voice is a stand-up is definitely in the sort of like absurdist maria

bamford bent um so it's it's and let's let's make this clear because there were people who were like

kaylin's not really a pa on game changer the word is stagehand and kaylin had done it many seasons

over like you can spot Kaylin and back of like the previous three seasons of Game Changer before she had a meaningful performance opportunity

The first time we worked with Kaylin in that regard, she had a mask on, so you might not recognize her, but was in Bingo

It was the Bingo one, right? Exactly. I basically know, and it's an issue of trust for me as a producer, that I can put Kaylin in, like, really uncomfortable situations, and she'll thrive and be funny

um she has like we would say in the game changer uh writer's room a high tolerance for spice

is what we say and there's there's other plenty of other people in the dropout universe with a

high tolerance for spice like grant o'brien lily do very very high tolerance for spice but she has

such a high tolerance for for spice they tend to put her in these kind of like very stunty scenarios

um putting her in this episode was really just more of a all right let's let the bird out of

the nest and watch her fly and boy did she yeah i love that i also have a question of something

she brought up which is that you had beach towels made with you on them this is so important and i'm

so glad you bring this up um i did not have beach towels made with my image on them elaine had beach

towels made with my image on them for my birthday and i was not aware of this i have some important

questions one is it a full head to toe sam like the game changer standee or is it just like your

face it is full head to toe me in my suit great great great great two when will they be available

in the dropout store i think if demand as a result of this episode and this conversation is enough

you can rest assured i love that i currently have a beach towel that has a dead daniel ragliffe on

that they sent out for swiss army man and uh it's a head turner at the beach yeah that's what you

really want at the beach is you want a conversation starter people go to the beach to socialize

with strangers on the beach exactly you get it this is just going to print you money

i'm also curious about um what you anticipate the fan heart to be from this episode because

one the you and kurt kiss i do think quite rightly people will lose their minds and two

Paul Grimmarino, Reeperino, Paul Reeperino. Weirdly a hot thing. Totally. Grim Reeperino, for sure

You know, it's such a funny little like, almost like clown nod that we started doing these episodes

There are definitely times where it's like, oh, here's a character that serves no important purpose

from a game mechanic perspective, but would be so fun and funny and like a ham opportunity for a performer

Case in point, Josh's Fisherman, which like I'm Josh, Josh's wife texted me

What on earth is going on? Because she was so baffled by the amount of fan art coming through for

for Josh's Fisherman. And that really was as simple as like Elaine and I were working on the

episode and we were like, well, we, this, this needs it's a Vanna white

and uh elaine was like you know what we should do is we should have josh reprise as fishing theme

and all we should have josh reprise his grizzled fisherman character for make some noise

i'm free diving off a dock in calamary nans i fly on down didn't take enough breath i die

i float to the bottom the sami himself well i call him posaiming so yeah i think i think grim

reaperino would be top of my list um and then you know it's a good question there's there's

lots of moments to pull from here uh lots of individual performances i don't know i mean

part of what we get to see now is like this episode is almost like a teeny tiny uh uh has a

little hint of fool's gold in it where like all of these like performances are going to go out on

social and i imagine there's like this secondary vote that's going to occur which is like what

what are people what performance are people most excited about seeing up there that's a very good

point i'm excited to see that reaction we are almost out of time so i just have one final

question for you sam um how would you like to die i would like to die after um uh doing

approximately 91 more seasons of this show gotcha appreciate that i think that buys me enough time