While you binge on the show this weekend, we touched base with series co-creator, Lesley Arfin, about love, gender, and the importance of texting (and everything in between). LESLEY ARFIN: Paul [Rust] and I, who are married now, we were asked to write something together a long time ago. But I had a question. I knew I loved Paul. I knew I wanted to marry him and have a family with him, and I wasn’t sure why, and I wasn’t sure how it [marriage] works! It’s not like I was struck by a bolt of lightning. It wasn’t some big romantic high where all the stars aligned for us. It didn’t say anything about it in my horroscope. I anything our astrological signs are notoriously bad for each other. But I thought, this is an interesting question that I have, and I talked to Paul about it. And any time I have a question I write my way through the answer. So Paul and I were discussing it, and I was like, “I know I love you. I know you love me,” but like, I never thought that I would get married. Let alone get married or go out with someone without cheating on them. And I’ve never cheated on Paul. And I was like, Why? What changed? What’s the difference? What is love really like after the honeymoon is over? After that romantic “let’s have sex every day for a month”. What does that look like, and why do we stay in it? Everything that we see, it’s all relationships. It’s all love. LESLEY ARFIN: Absolutely! Like we never—I feel our writers’ room, and Paul and Judd—I believe we’re all on the same page. I have no intention of ever manipulating anybody to think that somebody is a villain or a hero because Gus and Mickey—like you said—neither is the “right” one. And to me that means that no one is the right one, and if no one is the right one then everyone is the right one. There are arranged marriages that work out really well. It doesn’t take magical stardust soulmate bullshit. It’s really just not up to us. It’s a willingness to be open-minded, and to me, I knew that I loved Paul not because he was so wonderful, but because of all of his flaws that made him so not wonderful and being able to accept him. And it’s a commitment to learn how to accept any future flaws. And I don’t think a hero or a villain—I don’t think anyone is one-sided like that. DEN OF GEEK: There’s a real duality between everyone. It’s interesting—and maybe it’s even a gender thing, too—but from the start I was empathizing with Gus more, but by the end of the series I was absolutely Team Mickey. You do a good job of keeping this equilibrium going that just when one of them has power in the relationship it very quickly shifts to the other one. All of Love’s first season is now available to stream on Netflix. We’ll have the full interview in next month’s TV IV podcast. For now, listen to the first episode here:
