‘Love’s Paul Rust Reveals Why The Show Needed To End

It’s official — Love is dead. After three seasons, many fights, and countless awkward silences, Netflix’s Judd Apatow, Paul Rust, and Lesley Arfin-created comedy will premiere its third and final season this week. Things certainly don’t end on a perfect note for Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) and Gus (Rust), but this upcoming season is pointedly sweeter and more romantic than any other season of the series.

Love has always been a remarkable show for Netflix. It’s the streaming service’s first big collaboration with Apatow — who later starred in his own Netflix standup special — and it’s one of Netflix’s few original rom-coms. On the flip side, Love stands as one of 10 major Netflix originals that have been cancelled by the streaming service (not counting children’s shows or one-off shows like w/ Bob and David). Not only that, but Love is one of the few Netflix originals that has ended on its own terms, like Bloodline did with its final season and House of Cards and Sense8 will do in  the future.

“The first [season] you’re just trying to establish the tone and sort of present the characters in a way that feels natural or not rushed. Or ‘sweaty,'” Rust told Decider.

This season’s challenge was more about allowing the show reach its natural conclusion than trying to one-up itself. “It’s interesting that you say it was a sweet season because that was the challenge … usually at this stage of a relationship, it is nice.”

“We have a line of dialogue in the episode that’s something [that] happened to me like 10 years ago,” Rust said. Early in Season 3, one of Mickey and Gus’ couple friends ask them how long they’ve been dating. When they tell them five or six months, the friend tells them they’re in the best part. That sort of relaxed joy is what Season 3 of the series captures. “It’s still exciting because you’re still feeling the vibe of getting into somebody. But you’re not in that weird phase where you’re like, ‘Oh maybe I’m going to screw up the third date, and then they won’t want to be with me anymore,'” Rust said.

Speaking of timing, Love has a surprising connection to the 2016 election. If you plotted out the timeline of the series, Mickey and Gus’ whirlwind romance would end around October of 2016. “Judd and I were joking about how it’s like the last days of innocence,” Rust said.

“The three of us along with talking to Netflix, we all decided you know what? This feels like a really good and appropriate time to wrap up the show.”

“I’m a big fan of this movie Shampoo, and I would by no means ever compare ourselves to that because Shampoo is a masterpiece. But the whole movie plays out on the night that Richard Nixon was elected,” he said. “So I thought we’re in a bit of a Shampoo moment.”

According to Rust, the Love team started working on Season 3 about 15 months ago. When they started this new season, they had a good idea that this would be the show’s final season. “We were definitely feeling a little bit like, ‘Hey, we might want to make this the last season, so what can we be doing here if we do decide that?'” Rust said.

The decision to end Love was a mutual one between Netflix and the show’s creators — Judd Apatow, Paul Rust, and Lesley Arfin. “The three of us along with talking to Netflix, we all decided you know what? This feels like a really good and appropriate time to wrap up the show. We feel like we’ve said what we wanted to about these characters, and I think we just didn’t want to end it where we’re in a position like, ‘Oh, the tank’s been dry for a couple seasons now,'” he said.

“We have really amazing and supportive collaborators throughout the three seasons, and it was nice to be able to have the freedom to be having conversations like that with them as opposed to having somebody else decide for you after you’ve completed the season,” Rust said of Netflix. “It’s nice.”

Currently, Rust doesn’t have any other projects lined up with Apatow or Netflix, but he’s open to working with Apatow again in the future. “We’re ending the show, but we still really care about each other, and I could see us working on something again in the future,” he said. “But right now I’m just really enjoying the process of writing something new, and I’m hoping to do that soon.”

Last year when Decider interviewed Rust and his co-star Gillian Jacobs, the two said that the ultimate happy ending for their characters would be “self-awareness and feeling content.” Rust still largely agreed with that sentiment but added some insight from Jacobs, whom he called a “phenomenally talented and gifted actor.”

“I remember one time she said something like, ‘Oh I think Mickey would be happy if she recognized I’m never going to be able to fill this gaping hole of need that’s just in my life. And that that’s always going to be there.’ I don’t know if that’s necessarily totally clear in the ending … but I’d like to think that that’s partly some sort of happy ending that they came to,” he said. “It’s not the happiest ending, but if you can kind of go like, ‘You know, his idea that I’m totally going to be eventually fulfilled and happy …’ if you can kind of let go of that as an illusion that that’s not possible, that can be a sort of happy ending. Hopefully, we got there.”

However, one of the biggest changes of the season isn’t about Mickey or Gus at all; it’s about Claudia O’Doherty‘s Bertie. “We have been blessed with two amazing actors who can make every single line and scene that they’re in come alive and they’re just so compelling on screen,” Rust said of O’Doherty and Mike Mitchell, who plays Randy.

After exploring Mickey and Gus’ relationship for two seasons, Love decided to expand relationship its universe. “It would be nice to look into different characters’ relationships to have different insights to love and relationships,” Rust said. “But I also think it probably came out of what we were talking about before, which is like Mickey and Gus are in a good place, and if you need drama and you need conflict, you can kind of turn to [Bertie and Randy].”

“I think it was also interesting with Claudia’s character — she makes a choice that’s similar to one that Mickey made in Season 2,” Rust said, adding that the choice he was referring to was controversial with fans. “There was something interesting and exciting about, ‘What if we put Bertie, who’s this sort of widely and rightfully beloved character, and you have her in a similar situation.”

“How does an audience respond to ‘Oh wait, maybe this is OK,'” he said. “Just having the ability to have those contradictions felt really fun.”

Though Love has ended, that doesn’t mean there’s no remaining love among the show’s cast and creators. Rust, Arfin, and O’Doherty have started having TV nights together. “My wife and Claudia are close friends and huge fans of Friends, and I’ve been a little snobby and just going like ‘I don’t need to watch Friends!'” However, Arfin and O’Doherty have since sucked Rust into the Friends void. “We’ve just been having the most lovely nights where we get together and we watch five episodes of Friends and laugh and laugh and laugh.”

Love’s third and final season premieres on Netflix Friday, March 9. 

Stream Love on Netflix