‘The Four Seasons’: Tina Fey & Team on That Big Movie Change, Cliffhanger, and Season 2 Hopes (VIDEO)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Four Seasons Season 1.]

The Four Seasons is here as Tina Fey and funny friends enjoy a year of getaways in the delightful TV comedy, which is inspired by Alan Alda‘s 1981 flick of the same name.

And while here’s plenty of homage going on, Fey and co-creators Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher are shaking some things up with this updated series adaptation. For those tuning into the Netflix offering, The Four Seasons follows three sets of couples: Kate (Fey) and Jack (Will Forte), Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani), and Nick (Steve Carell) and Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver).

The eight-episode season focuses on four separate vacations throughout the four different seasons, kicking off with spring at Nick and Anne’s lake house. And while their gathering initially feels like an exciting and fun time, Nick makes it clear to some of his friends that he’s planning to divorce Anne, stirring up plenty of drama and room for hilariously awkward moments.

Jon Pack / Netflix

When Episode 3 arrives, it’s time for summer, at which point Nick’s new girlfriend, the much younger Ginny (Erika Henningsen), has joined the group for vacation, leaving Anne on a solo trip at a nearby resort. As the show tracks shifting dynamics, issues between Kate and Jack, as well as Danny and Claude, are put under a microscope, but everything changes when winter rolls around and… [Spoiler Alert] Nick dies in an accident.

This is a big change from the film and a decision that Fey, Wigfield, and Fisher all had to deliberate. “We wanted something to happen that was human scale, but also meaningful,” Fey tells TV Insider. “And that is a thing, we’re getting to an age where that happens. If someone our age dies… It’s sad, but not that shocking. So we decided, as painful as it was, that we would let that happen and see what that did to the other characters.”

“We thought about killing Nick for a long time because it’s a big move,” Wigfield echoes. “It’s not a move that’s in the movie, but [the show] does have the stakes of real life. And when you are friends with people for 20 years, they see you through the good and the bad. They’re with you through everybody getting married, they’re with you for parents dying, and sometimes when a friend dies.”

Related

TV Review: 'The Four Seasons'

When Nick’s death came around, Kate and Jack had been experiencing tensions in their relationship, which was a big contrast to the place they’d been in at the start of the season as the strongest couple of the group. Ultimately, the duo puts their differences aside in the wake of Nick’s loss, and Fisher says, “I think we wanted, especially for Kate and Jack, to have this crisis moment be a thing that can either break them or bring them together and it puts their issues on a platter in front of them. And the group as a whole, I feel like it needed some giant mess up to make everyone kind of come clean about how they’re feeling and what they’re going through.”

Those moments of honesty that follow Nick’s death include a shocking cliffhanger reveal that was part of the movie, but certainly lends itself to a possible second season as Ginny reveals to the group that she’s pregnant. There isn’t much time to sit with that information before the finale credits roll. But as Wigfield says, “If we did another season, we would want the same group of friends, and we’d want Ginny to really be tied in there because she and Anne are going to have children who are siblings. And it just gives us a lot to play with in their relationship.”

As for Season 2 hopes, Fey adds, “I feel like we sort of don’t dare to dream yet, but we did. Who knows. If we were lucky enough to do more of these, we’d certainly all like to hang out again.” We know we’d certainly like to tag along. For the full interview with Fey, Forte, Domingo, Calvani, and Kenney-Silver, check out the video above. And relive every great moment from The Four Seasons on Netflix now.

The Four Seasons, Streaming now, Netflix