Tandy’s beard is back, first and foremost. When you learned you were getting a second season, was that one of the first things that you knew had to return?

What’s funny is from the moment we started season one, the network was very nervous about that beard. They worried that people wouldn’t recognize Will Forte, and for those guys, it’s all about the marketing and the launch. I remember so many discussions about that beard. “When is it coming off? Can it come off sooner? Can we put him on the billboard without it?” Will always wanted his character to shave for Melissa. And then once we all saw him without it, it was unanimous – we all completely agreed that the show needs the beard like Nike needs the swoosh. So yeah, from the moment it came off, Will was growing it back.

Was it always an aircraft carrier that Tandy was messing around with in this? Or was there some other equally over-the-top item being considered at one point

The original script just started with them in the White House. I think it was John Solomon, who co-wrote it and also directed it, who kept looking for a bigger opening image. I think he and Dave Noel came up with the bomber during one of the rewrites. It was just a matter of John saying, “Isn’t there some huge splashy image we can open on?” Will assumed it couldn’t be done, but our producer, Steve Burgess is unflappable, and as it turns out, he found us a way to do it. The first two episodes of this season were wildly over budget, just like the first two episodes of last season. Then for the next few episodes we had to try to climb out of that financial hole. As an aside, when you see an episode where they are mainly in the house or out by the pool, that’s an episode where we are saving money.

You told me in the past that that great “Paper Planes” joke was originally in the second episode, but then moved over here. Can you talk about the differences in how the premiere and the next episode originally were supposed to end and begin?