SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils the finale of the first season of Rooster on HBO and HBO Max.

The first season of Bill Lawrence’s and Matt Tarses’ HBO comedy series Rooster has come to an end, but not to worry because everyone will be back for the second season.

In a cozy, snowy Christmas-set finale episode, Greg (Steve Carell) gives what he thinks is his last lecture to his writing seminar students, until a surprise party organized by Professor Dylan (Danielle Deadwyler) and Tommy (Maximo Salas) convinces him that he’s found a place he belongs. He gives another speech at Art’s Diner where they toast to him, and after, he calls Ludlow College President Walter Mann (John C. McGinley) to see if he can stay another semester.

Other victories involve Greg’s daughter Katie (Charly Clive) and pregnant graduate student Sunny (Lauren Tsai) leaving Phil Dunster’s Russian studies professor Archie Bates for good. More on what that means for him below. Unfortunately, Walt’s sneaking suspicion that Greg’s ex-wife Beth (Connie Britton) was out for his job proved to be right, but he has one more semester with Greg, “their swan song.”

Looking ahead to season 2, there are possibilities for new cast and characters to enter the scene, especially with co-creators Lawrence and Tarses’ sprinkling easter eggs throughout the first season, as they drew attention to.

“You haven’t met Tommy’s dad. You haven’t met the professor that Dylan said, “I love you” to and took it back, which I think is probably super important. [Laughs.] Matt and I always do this on shows, is leave easter eggs for the next year,” Lawerence told Deadline in an interview. “So the same way that talking about, ‘if you find a girl that loves a bike like this,’ is an Easter egg, I think Diana is a pretty good easter egg on this show, not only as the last person that Walt was with before his wife, but also as Sunny’s benefactor.”

Sunny left Archie at Ludlow with help from her roommate Mo (Robby Hoffman) to catch an earlier flight home to Wisconsin for the holiday. She also turned down a prestigious job offer from Biotecha, which is where the Diana connection came in, when she thought she and Archie would be raising their baby together.

“The other thing we love doing is when we see people that we put into small roles popping even with only one or two lines. One of them for us, was the Philosophy professor who’s played by the stand up named Rick Glassman,” Lawrence added. [Hopefully] Alan Ruck’s return. The burden of this show is finding time for everybody, but there’s definitely some new characters we’ve hinted that coming back.”

Other guest stars in the first season included Scott MacArthur’s (Running Point) hockey coach Jake and Sunny’s dad Fred (played by Jim O’Heir), though we didn’t meet her mom.

“I think he’s given away too much with some of those things, but that’s fine. It’s hard because we’ve had the good fortune of all these people being really funny and fun to write for, but we only have 30 minutes to write these episodes,” Tarses told Deadline. “And it’s really hard to service all of them. But yes, there will be more. I think that one that [Bill] mentioned is going to be important for a lot of characters.”

Tarses and Lawrence address the It’s A Wonderful Life reference and metaphor, Archie’s path forward and more in the below interview.

DEADLINE: How did you arrive at the decision of having Katie and Sunny both ditch Archie? Is he redeemable? What landed you on that outcome for the love triangle?

BILL LAWRENCE:  For me, there’s no other ending of the first year. I would be so upset, as someone that I hope has grown to like and empathize with both Sunny and Katie, if either one of them were still tethered to this guy, and were still defining their own self-worth by their relationship to him. For me, Katie’s [goodbye] was so empowering, even if it was that weird back and forth, that, by the way, we’ve all seen friends, ourselves, everybody do. And for Sunny, leading that scene, I thought she was so good in it that she was hurt in a way that she was surprised by, but that what she said at the beginning hadn’t changed, which was, ‘I think that you might take a good path, but if you don’t, I’ll move on.’

I know in the writers room, we’re all excited about those two female characters starting as independent human beings that have to make their own way and then aren’t defined in any way by their relationships, and you probably won’t see — especially with Arch — any of that stuff early on.

MATT TARSES: We changed lots of things along the way this season as we conceived of it. One thing that never changed was that idea that Archie was going to be alone at the end. In fact, things were going to be even a little worse for him at one point. But yeah, we always wanted those we always wanted to punish him for being a narcissistic bastard.

LAWRENCE: We told Phil Dunster that there’s no redeemable path for his character until he truly bottoms out. And I wouldn’t say he’s there just yet, but he’s getting close.

DEADLINE: So the idea is to keep him around for season 2? He’s not leaving?

LAWRENCE: Yeah, all the all the same regulars are the same regulars,

DEADLINE: I have to ask about Greg and Dylan, is their romance still possible? Has that ship sailed? I love the whole bike moment.

LAWRENCE: Everybody caught that Easter egg.

TARSES: Bill and I fight about this a lot, but, for sure, they’re going to be good friends, as she says in the library. That’s not going to change, and I feel like the best relationships, romantic ones, come out of a deep friendship. So we certainly haven’t closed the door on it. We argue back and forth about the will they or won’t they have at all. I’m a big fan of romance, so we’ll see where we end up.

LAWRENCE: The show is definitely more rewarding and more complicated that people that notice that [connection] will know there’s a subtext of their friendship that has stakes, especially as people get more comfortable in the school world and start, especially for Greg — after Annie Mumolo’s Cristle , which is a very funny relationship, I don’t think we’ve seen him be in a real one yet. So, it’ll be interesting, however that goes down.

DEADLINE: There’s also that moment with Greg and Beth, she tries to make a move on him, and then he steps back, which I was proud of him for. Was it ever a consideration that they might get back together at any point?

LAWRENCE: No, we wanted to do what you just said, which was, we wanted [viewers] to know, at the beginning of the year, had she done that, he would have kissed her, and he would have gotten crushed. At the end of the year, by finding this place where he felt like he belonged, and he felt like he had a community, [ditched] some of his loneliness, he had some of the strength, to say [no]. I think Beth’s — Matt called her a sociopath, I don’t know if Beth’s a sociopath, but I like that she is not someone that gives a lot of thought to what she does and acts on whatever instinct she has and never seems to pay a price for it, which is why I think Connie’s so funny playing that part.

TARSES: Yeah, I think I can say this, there was a time, earlier, before we totally landed on what the arc would be, where she did make a pass at him in an earlier episode, and he did have a different response to it. It was a great to hold it off and see make it be an emblem of his growth.

DEADLINE: And then there is the moment that I was unfortunately waiting for with her taking John C McGinley’s character’s job. Where’d you want to arrive with that? He was hinting at it all season.

LAWRENCE: I love that you saw that coming, because everybody else thought it was just a joke.

DEADLINE: I was sad because you have this great Christmas episode, it’s all warm and fuzzy, and then this happens. What can you guys say about that?

LAWRENCE: Well, the important thing for us is that this show is so interesting because it’s such a compressed period of time, It’s like Groundhog Day, the movie. If you looked at the show, it really took place only over a few weeks, so it’s still all so fresh— and we love Connie, she’s gonna be in as many episodes as she’ll possibly let us put her in, but we took great pains to say next semester will be their swan song, and then the year after that, she’ll be the president. So it’s not, it’s not like coming back to a totally new environment. It’s coming back dealing with that news and what that means moving forward.

DEADLINE: How does Walt compare to Alan Ruck’s character? He’s a member of this old guard, but he seems a little more aware. He’s less problematic. How does that work into the whole transition?

TARSES: He is more evolved. He says that he’s trying, he’s at least trying to catch up, but for sure, it’s a thing happening in the world. He’s not a fresh young voice. He’s not, certainly at the at the cutting, cutting edge of that and it makes sense that a college would want somebody who is a little more ahead of that curve. That being said, I think he’s a guy who cares deeply about the school, and he cares deeply about education, so his heart is in the right place. So we’ll see if that is, if that’s enough to keep him around.

LAWRENCE: I’m never worried about, in real life and on TV ,characters that are flawed but are at least trying, with different levels of success, to move forward. I’m always down on and worried about the characters that are just stuck and not making any effort to change. Right now I root for Walt because I know how badly he wants to make it work, and I root against Arch, even though Phil Dunster’s great at making him still oddly empathetic. I don’t know how he does it, but until Arch really pays the price, I don’t want to see anything good happen to him.

DEADLINE: So a redemption arc is in mind for him, would you say?

LAWRENCE: Only if we can earn it, and if he can truly bottom out. Because, right now, if I were that character, I would be thinking, I can fix all this. It’s not like somebody we haven’t all known in our life, someone that everything comes easy for them and they never seem to pay the price for any of their behavior. And Matt’s like that.

TARSES: I haven’t bottomed out yet.

DEADLINE: You guys put Phil through so much too, with the spinach in his teeth, he just has so many scenes where it’s like, how is he doing this?

LAWRENCE: Making out with a dog. Spinach being everywhere, his pants covered with coffee.

DEADLINE: The wrestling scene. I know you shoot in California, but can you talk about the snow for this episode and how you wanted to get that effect?

LAWRENCE: Yeah, look, one of the hardest things for this show is, we had to make you believe that you’re in autumn and winter in New England. We’re whining about a high-class problem. It’s really hard to shoot and make that look great and real, but we were able to do it because we have an awesome crew and awesome production team. I was involved in making it, and I watched it on television. I’m like, “Oh, my God, we must have gone back to Connecticut or something.”

TARSES: They did an incredible job, I gotta say, because it was hot, it was August. Snow was coming down.

LAWRENCE: And watching Steve and Charlie sweat and winter jackets. It was fun.

DEADLINE: I’m one of those people that watches It’s A Wonderful Life every Christmas, which I know is not unique, but I’m just curious how that contributed to the vibe you wanted to end on with the surprise party? Bill we spoke about Greg’s loneliness at the beginning of the show and now he’s found his place of belonging as you’ve said.

LAWRENCE: Matt and I were just, also as people that love that movie and people who are shocked that our own children — have your children seen it? My boys have not seen it.

TARSES: I made my kids watch it when they were young, yeah.

LAWRENCE: Neither of my boys [have seen it]. Both my boys are like “What the hell’s that movie?”

TARSES: It’s long, you forget how long it is.

LAWRENCE: And they’re like, why is it not in color? It just doesn’t work. I mean, it works for me, but it just felt like a great metaphor for Greg in a Christmas episode, to see his worth, and how much he’s given to others and the people around him. Especially from where we started — as I talked to you about — as a lonely guy making up a group of friends that he was visiting back at home before he left, to do the opposite side of that, and a whole bunch of people showing up for him when he left this time. That was the story we wanted to tell the first season.

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TARSES: And it was really moving. It really mirrored the community that these guys had had built here. Steve was genuinely moved when he gave that speech. And it felt like it came from a real place. So it felt like we’d earned it.

DEADLINE: Bill, you’ve worked on a lot of, three-season arc shows. Is this one of those, or could you see it going further?

LAWRENCE: Thisshow is different in terms of, it’s such a delightful ensemble piece. We know how it ends, but I expect that Matt and I haven’t said anything too definitive about how many years it goes solely because if Steve Carell wants to keep doing it, we’re going to keep doing it. It’s just too much of a fun group.

TARSES: It’s the kind of group you just want to work with forever.

LAWRENCE: And we figured the show out in the first 10 episodes [which] is a little more of a slow roll than we usually do. But it’s so much fun and easy to write all this conflict this next year. So it’s been a blast.

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