‘Casual’ Star Tommy Dewey Reflects On The “Hopeful” Final Season

Today, with eight reliably wonderful episodes, Hulu’s Casual comes to an end — luckily, on its very own terms, a rare feat for any shows these days. With moments that ranged from sentimental to silly to simply scrumptious breakfast foods, Casual is one of the best modern examples of honest, smart, effective storytelling — and quite bingeable at that. Viewers that have stuck around for all four seasons feel emotionally invested and, in some cases, tied to Alex (Tommy Dewey), Val (Michaela Watkins), Laura (Tara Lynne Barr) and their various friends, lovers, and enemies — with many supporting characters taking on all of those descriptions throughout their brief runs on the show.

With their fourth and final season Casual wisely made the decision to jump four years into the future from where we left them at the end of season three. And as Dewey explained to Decider, “I loved the time jump. It allows you to get to new storytelling with just one simple move. It’s the first time Alex is able to really, for an extended period of time, get out of himself and actually direct the majority of his attention towards something else. He has still got plenty of self-involvement as I’m sure you noticed, but it’s cool that that balance changes with him by doing that time jump and giving him a four-year-old daughter. I think that character-wise it is still pretty consistent, but it is nice to sort of fiddle with the dials a little bit and move him into that area where he is a little more selfless.”

Yes that’s right, as the show continues to challenge and redefine who and what makes a family, Alex and Rae (Maya Erskine) have the cutest daughter Carrie (Lucy Vuong) as part of their functioning and non-complicated until it’s complicated relationship, where the two adults cohabitate and co-parent, but aren’t involved in a romantic relationship. Dewey confirmed that he was just as happy to have an on-screen daughter as Alex was to have this new development in his life. “That’s not a tough acting job, she is adorable. It’s so easy to want to take care of her and look after her well-being because she is such a sweet little girl and she is such a great actor. And no trouble at all. I am more trouble than that little child is. She shows up, hits her marks, knows her lines: a pretty remarkable young talent.”

A slightly less adorable consequence of the time jump is the decision for the show to double down on it’s exploration of technology: how it connects, angers, helps, and perhaps most significantly, complicates the lives of these characters, and in turn, ourselves. Between an episode dedicated to VR dating, plenty of driverless cars, an upgraded Alexa model, and of course, a pancake bot (which is a real thing you can add to your life right now), Dewey noted showrunner Zander Lehmann and the show’s writers kept it authentic while taking guesses, some more cheeky than others, about where we might be technology-wise in just a few years. “It didn’t feel like Black Mirror to me. I still felt like I was following this family, they were very relatable and it’s still grounded in the real world. I think it would be easy to start having too much fun with that and having too many of those things and then you don’t recognize the world.”

And while he’s not on board with the Alexas of the world and virtual voice assistants (“I don’t like a device listening to me all the time”), Dewey’s not mad at the concept of driverless cars. “I think driverless cars are coming, once they sort out the glitches. I’m fine with driverless cars; it will also make for less awkward Uber trips, lord knows we’ve all gotten a chatty one. As much as I love to talk, I just want to sit in the car and get taken to my place. And there is something weird about someone talking to you over their shoulder when you’re sitting in the back, I don’t know, maybe I’m an asshole.”

He’s not, and really, neither is his character this season. For a grown adult with man-child tendencies and codependency issues, season four of Casual finds a more vulnerable and likable Alex. In fact, that goes for Val and Laura as well, who are both exploring serious relationships, doing their best not to fall into previous patterns, while also exploring professional passion projects. They’re not unrecognizable, but they’ve changed just enough to prove their growth and minimize the amount of facepalms they’ll cause the audience in their misadventures. In fact, the duo you should brace your hearts for the most goes to Leon (Nyasha Hatendi) and Leia (Julie Berman) who are faced with balancing their seemingly perfect relationship with their actual hopes and plans for the future.

The fourth and final season is a fitting goodbye to Casual, a show that (hopefully) Hulu subscribers will continue to discover, watch and enjoy, even a fraction as much as the actors themselves. “The story of the show syncs up with my experience of the show,” Dewey said. “I feel very close to Michaela, I feel like we have created a little bit of a sibling relationship, so we are saying goodbye as people and as actors and at the same time.”

Not that the goodbye was a total breeze, even though they were as prepared as possible, a gift not all actors are afforded. “You know you’re shooting the last episode, the last scene, you’re aware of it,” Dewey said. “If you enjoyed the experience and took the ride with the characters as you were playing them, it’s emotional.” Which proved to be very true on this set. “We were falling apart at the drop of a hat the last week,” he admitted. “We were pitiful! But it was also kind of funny. We were appreciative to do a show that makes you feel like that.” And at the risk of being corny yet truthful, many viewers feel just as appreciative to have watched it.

Without giving too much away about the ending, Dewey reflected, “As tough as that last episode is, I leave the series feeling, not that it’s all going to be great and not that Alex won’t cry all the time, but it’s kind of hopeful. I would argue that it’s a little bit of an up ending, albeit a little sad.” From Casual, that’s exactly what we’ve come to count on.

Where to watch Casual