What’s interesting is what you think a show is and what it’s going to be about are often not right. You end up discovering something more through the influence of the writers, the artists, and everyone that’s involved. You think you’re going to start out in one direction, but you have to remain open to saying, “Hey, this isn’t what we were doing. This isn’t what we set out for. But it’s a better place to go.”

Perfect example: what you guys have done with Roger is night and day from what he started out as, where he was stuck in the house all the time.

That was obviously an incredible bonanza when we discovered how Roger can react to the world. And it took a little bit of re-jiggering the brain where you go, wait a minute, so he connects with the rest of the world but no one’s going to ask questions? I think his first or second time going outside, his costume was a burn victim, which kind of justified it for everybody. But then we just decided to put him in costumes and see how people would respond, and it’s so funny seeing him in these costumes. You couldn’t say “no” to it. It felt so natural. That really is the lesson though—just staying open and being aware of what feels good instead of trying to maintain that perspective that might have felt crucial in the beginning.

With the 200th episode, when a lot of series have a big episode like this, it’s usually just some sort of spectacle. However you guys have this weird well of apocalyptic continuity that you pull from in episodes like “Rapture’s Delight.” Is it nice to have sort of set that precedent and have those tools in place to use when you want to turn out something like this?

The world’s ending, man! Maybe we like to blow up our world so we can rebuild it. That’s really the whole nature of the show. We start and stop, and start and stop. Being able to have a whole episode that doesn’t necessarily connect to the canon of the show, but is still a great ride holds a lot of appeal. We’ve done it so many times with the audience that it’s just fine at this point.