The challenge in writing a show that’s about people and their flaws is that it can easily tip over—okay, I’ll sometimes watch something and there will be characters that are written in a way that I’ll know that the writer just hates human beings. They’re expressing this misanthropic point of view with these detestable characters. But then you can watch something with flawed characters and feel like the writer cares the most about humans because they’re willing to accept these flaws. It’s not for me to say how successful we’ve been with that, but that’s probably the number one thing on my mind with this show. We want people to be flawed, but we don’t want it to be mean-spirited.

Mike Mitchell, who plays Randy, is an old friend of mine and you couldn’t meet a more wonderful people. It’s funny because sometimes that’s what you get when you’re so likable. We really push the limits of what you can tolerate with him because we know that Mike is such a lovable guy. So I do think Randy is a flawed guy, but I do love him for that and think that he’s deserving of love. By the end of the season I hope people see that some micro-steps have been taken with the character and maybe in a year’s time he’ll be better along with his life.

Let’s talk about that ending a little bit! Did you guys go back and forth over if they’d get married or not, or if events would play out any differently?

We definitely considered different, multiple endings. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs as writers if we didn’t just make countless lists of where this ending could go. This is something that I actually liked about our show, which I’m reluctant to say because I feel to be a proper writer I need to hate everything that I’ve done. But we really wanted to have an ending that can feel like it’s a happy ending if you want it to be and the same can be said for if you think this is a dark conclusion. All of our season finales have that feeling and I like that a lot about them. Broadly, that was the goal with our ending. I’m also reluctant to say this, but we wanted that ambiguity in the ending where there are multiple interpretations. I have a friend, Dan, who says, “Ambiguity means multiple meanings, not no meanings.” I’m content with that final note.

Well and I think Love is very unique in the sense that it’s this eye of the beholder sort of thing. You bring your own relationship baggage into the show and if you’re happy or miserable, you might project that onto Mickey and Gus, too.