The quest to be an empress for Rachel and Sarah — along with their gardening vibes — came to a head in the season two finale of YOLO: Silver Destiny on Adult Swim. Gizmodo sat down with the animated series’ creator Michael Cusack and cast members Sarah Bishop (Sarah) and Todor Manojlovic (Rachel) to talk about this season’s exploits.
Filled with mega-cringe comedy, absurd acid-trip fantasy, and some art-house choices featuring Timothée Chalamet, YOLO leveled up in season two by really pushing the show’s fierce friendship to its limits. With the season finale, “This is LITERALLY the Finale,” airing March 6, we were excited to dig into Silver Destiny’s most memorable moments.
Sabina Graves, Gizmodo: There are so many plot twists and fun choices this season. I loved the art-house black and white episode, “Chaise in the City.” I’m curious, what was the idea behind that and who plays the Timothée Chalamet parody (or did he cameo)?
Michael Cusack: I [voiced him]! We would have loved to [hire him], [but] I don’t think there was any idea of going out to him because we did it once on Smiling Friends — we went out to an actor that we wanted to get and they said no. And then we couldn’t we couldn’t even parody him, because I think that’s a rule we’re not allowed to. So if you go out to Timothée Chalamet and he says, “No,” you can’t even do the parody. So it’s easier just to do that, just to do the voice. So that was me doing a crappy impersonation. I just watched Lady Bird and then just try to mimic that character.
Gizmodo: It worked, it was so hilarious. This season we get to see Lucas’ arc become more of a present B-plot with his quest for Sarah’s love and seeing how that manifests as the “nice guy” trope —
Cusack: Yeah, absolutely. So obviously the show is at its core about Sarah and Rachel as a duo. We’re got fantastic writers in to talk about all their journeys, about going out with their girlfriends — because I have club experience, but not as much as women in Australia in those cities who have actually done that kind of stuff. So Lucas is fun personally for me because I can put the cringy stuff I’ve done as a guy into his character, and other guys that I know, those kind of obsessions you have. Sometimes it can be either with a person, like Lucas is with Sarah. Lucas especially, we got a chance to develop him as a character and get him a learning curve. So, yeah, he’s fun. I love Lucas.
Gizmodo: It was cool to see Sarah and Rachel kind of fall into frenemy territory. I like the path of the season, where they diverge from Sarah’s gardening and Rachel’s sort of dwelling on having lost her love and descending into a pit of literal toxic waste. Todor and Sarah, how was it for you to see that on the page and exploring this new territory?
Todor Manojlovic: It was really fun. I really love the story arc with with Rachel and Sarah. It seems to me, there’s always that turmoil that they experience. But this time, really, it’s just because Rachel has muted Sarah and Sarah tried to kill Rachel. One side is a big deal, the other not so much. But it’s funny that the muting would be the one that really causes the turmoil. But yeah, it’s exciting to see where confusion leads them both because they’re both on their path. And the finale is going to really draw on that and where they might head and if it’s going to involve each other. How they resolve that is, I think, really nice as usual.
Sarah Bishop: I think the muting thing is just genius because it is weird now with friendships where, like, in high school — if you stopped being friends with someone, you just stopped being friends with someone. And now, because of social media, there is this extra kind of physical and final step that you take to kind of kill the friendship. I think that the finale kind of goes into that, and it’s just so fun to see how something so simple has these ramifications that just shatter their worlds.
Gizmodo: Just to circle into the whole season overall, including the finale, what were your favourite episodes to work on and favourite gags?
Manojlovic: My favourite was probably episode two [“Planet Bali”] or six [“The Parents Episode”], because me and Cusack did that together. And we sort of just spent — we actually just posted a little behind the scenes of us doing the music of it for it. It’s always really fun to come up with that stuff. Anything musical that we can chuck in there and just be stupid about it. That was a really good time. So yeah, I think that was that was my favourite.
Cusack: I love any episode with musical numbers in it. It’s just so fun to do. We used to work out of a church in Melbourne for Yolo and [production company Princess Pictures] doesn’t have that church anymore. We had a drum kit there, we had a piano and everything — so we’d be in one room doing voices late at night and then we could just walk into the other one and make a song in like 30 seconds with all the equipment that was set up there. So it’s a very special place. I’m already nostalgic [about] it. The songs have that kind of baked into it.
Bishop: I think for me as a fan of the show and a filmmaker, I loved episode four. I think just that whole black and white thing and going into that New York film world was so much fun. But as a performer playing Sarah, the bee episode [episode seven, “Journey to Chasm of the Bees”], that’s my favourite.
Gizmodo: Looking toward the future, are there any plans to continue these adventures?
Cusack: I would absolutely love to. I mean, Yolo is such a passion project because it was one of those things where a project is different. We kind of have different kinds of goals. I guess sometimes you want to reach as many people as possible. You want to do something specific. This one was just being very true to how Sarah, Todor, and I, we grew up in small Australian towns. Todor and I grew up in the same town, Wollongong, and it was a lot of the DNA of that kind of tone in the show. It’s definitely so fun to do and Adult Swim are so accommodating and just let us kind of do what we want. And the writers are great. And the writers are great. The crew, the animation team at Monkeystack in Adelaide, and [Princess Pictures] and [Bento Box Entertainment] are so great. It’s just a really fun project to do. So we’d love to do more.
Yolo: Silver Destiny and the show’s first season, Yolo: Crystal Fantasy, are streaming on HBO Max, as well as Adult Swim platforms and channels.