Once again headed up by Seth MacFarlane, Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh, Ted season 2 picks up a couple of months after season 1’s finale, with John and the titular talking teddy bear entering their senior year of high school. Rather than plan their futures, however, they continue to get wrapped up in a series of new hijinks, ranging from turning to oddball characters to buy weed, to Ted’s first risky relationship.
Max Burkholder and MacFarlane return to lead the Ted season 2 cast alongside Giorgia Whigham as John’s cousin Blaire, Scott Grimes as his father Matty and Alanna Ubach as his mother Susan. The season, which is scoring largely positive reviews from critics thus far, also includes guest appearances from The Orville vet Peter Macon and Dimension 20‘s Brennan Lee Mulligan, among many others.
In honor of the show’s return, ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns interviewed Seth MacFarlane, Giorgia Whigham, Max Burkholder, Scott Grimes and Alanna Ubach to discuss Ted season 2. While the show maintains its level of offbeat humor, it also peels back new layers for its central family of characters, from Matty having to better be vulnerable with Susan, to the Bennett matriarch starting to recognize her worth and underappreciation, and Blaire coming face-to-face with her emotionally abusive father.
In looking at breaking down some of Matty’s emotional walls, Grimes began by recalling some of the response to him in season 1 as being “a horrible character” — which he doesn’t disagree with, but instead describes as being a “really tough line” to thread in his performance. However, pointing out the changes to “the world we live in” and what occurs with both Susan and Blaire in season 2, Grimes praised the writers for being “smart enough” to go into the new episodes with the mindset of trying to figure out exactly why Matty is a bit of a prickly character:
Scott Grimes: “How can [he] continue to treat [his] wife so poorly? We’re going to see why he’s like this. Maybe there was some stuff and he gets more vulnerable.” And then you go, “Oh, that’s why she loves him.” So again, it’s all in the writing. And I just said the words and went, “Oh, this is cool. I get this kind of arc to be a better person,” but not fully, because if he came fully around, it’s like, “Oh, that’s boring.” He’s always going to be some sort of a p—k, but a lovable p—k.
For Ubach, she described the evolution of Susan’s character in Ted season 2 as being “just another celebration” of the Bennett family as a whole, pointing out that the show’s roster of characters are “based on people very personal to Seth,” many of whom he knew “when he was a little boy growing up.” As such, going into any day’s production, she kept in mind that “you have to honor the family” that both MacFarlane based the show around, and that they are culminating on set.
Ubach further found this to be an easy feat thanks to her Latina roots, being the daughter of a Puerto Rican father and Mexican mother, where “family is everything” to her, and that she’s “very close to my cousins, to my mom, and dad, and sibling.” The star even denoted that describing the Bennetts as being “dysfunctional” isn’t even fully needed, as “everyone gets” what one talks about when they refer to their family:
Alanna Ubach: This part, this certain family, they are very close, and to me, really do remind me of the Mexican family I was raised in, because there was so much dysfunction. My father was a total screamer. He was out of his effing mind, but my mom and dad would kiss and make up that night and everything would be fine. So I’m very, very used to that. I grew up in a family like that. I was raised by wolves, but they were loving wolves. And to me, these are the Bennetts.
Whigham, already a key source of emotional development in season 1 with Blaire’s progressive behaviors and coming out to her family, sees some of the most challenging evolution in Ted season 2, particularly after her break-up from Sarah leads to a near-life-changing event for her. Acknowledging that the “circumstances for Blaire got a little more serious” come the new season, and that the “stakes are higher,” Whigham further teased that the new season has “moments that could make or break her relationship with her family.”
When asked about having her voice heard more this season compared to season 1, Whigham points to the serious situations as being the core for this. Rather than dealing with “surface-y things” of broad insecurities or family problems, Ted season 2 sees her “diving a little deeper into her emotions,” with Whigham praising the writers for taking the chance to “show how much this family really does love each other.”
The Ted Creative Team Had The Same Goal Coming Into Season 2
ScreenRant: Seth, always an honor to get to chat with you. Season 2, you guys have just taken it even higher and even funnier. I’d love to start with hearing what are some of the lessons that maybe you, Paul Corrigan, and Brad Walsh really brought from season 1’s reception going into season 2?
Seth MacFarlane: What’s interesting is so many of the technological lessons we learned by doing the two movies. I think going into the series, we were lucky to have that experience under our belts. Certainly, Brad and Paul, who are two of my favorite writers that I’ve ever worked with, the three of us really had to focus on this family dynamic and how this works and how this worked in building these characters. Obviously, they came off Modern Family with their pile of Emmys, and they were just kind of the perfect partners for this. But that was really the challenge of doing the series, as opposed to the films were more traditional challenges. “How do you create these sitcom characters that people want to visit with week after week, episode after episode?” But oddly, the technological part of it with the animation of the bear was something that we had really kind of honed to a sharp edge. We just had to figure out how to do it faster.
ScreenRant: I’d love to hear, going into the second season of a show, you always get to reflect on what you did in season 1 and maybe find things that you felt worked, and maybe things that you felt you wanted to improve on. Was there anything that you found from your performances in season 1 that you wanted to really boost going into season 2?
Alanna Ubach: For me, it’s all about the writing and to see how the writers evolved, and they were now so comfortable in crossing the line that they were allowed to. I don’t think the network even gave any notes, did they, Scott?
Scott Grimes: No, I mean, they gave me notes about you, but none from me. [Laughs] The goes, she’s mad. While she’s gone, I love her. Shouting from off camera. I’ll tell you, it’s so much fun to get to do something again, having something been mildly successful. I think just getting to act with her again for me in the second season was like, what can we explore as [a couple] — but also without having any vanity. I didn’t want to be, “Oh, I want to look better. I want to be better.” No, no, no, no. Do exactly the same thing. And what Alanna said, just do this wonderful writing that they give us, and play the same characters. Don’t try to change it, because I think it’s lightning in a bottle in that first season. Whatever we did, I just wanted to match and do it again.
Alanna Ubach: I remember having a conversation with Seth about it, how sometimes a second season, or even the sequel to something, can be sort of force-feeding people what you think their favorite foods are. Come here, you like this, and you like that, and you like this and that.” You have to be really conscious of stepping back and grounding it as much as you possibly can. Otherwise, audiences are so smart. They know when you’re desperately trying to prove yourself again, or second guessing yourself after you’ve done a first season, and then you’re onto the second. It’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s wild.
Giorgia Whigham: That’s a good question. I personally didn’t go back and rewatch. I mean, every actor I feel like says this. I get nervous about watching myself. It’s not that I’m not proud of it. I really am.
Max Burkholder: It makes me want to vomit. [Laughs]
Giorgia Whigham: Yeah, secondhand embarrassment. “Who is that?” But I’ll just say, in terms of jumping into it, there’s kind of almost an inexplicable feeling that you’re getting to play a character for a second time, where it’s like you’re putting your suit back on, and her mannerisms started to come back to me, which is not too different than my normal day-to-day life. But I feel like I’ve become a little bit more pointed in my arguments and stuff. So, just small things like that. But there was nothing specific that I was like, “Oh yeah, that I have to bring in.” It just kind of all played out, I think, in the most natural way.
Max Burkholder: I will say, here’s the thing, not much changes with John between seasons 1 and 2. He’s very much the same guy, because he’s very much the same guy when we see him again at the beginning of the first movie. Not a lot really changes there. But I will say something I wanted to make sure of. I saw my dialect coach, Doug Honorof, again before season 2, and that really helped get me back into the headspace of just like, “Okay, I’m not going to suddenly have a precipitous drop in the accuracy of my accent between these seasons. I really want to make sure that I keep it consistent.”
ScreenRant: So, talking about John, even though he may not change too much, one thing that is happening big is its senior year, which means that he has to start thinking about the future. What was it like approaching a character who is still in this arrested development state, but has that in the back of his mind?
Max Burkholder: Yeah. I mean, here’s the thing, we say, “Oh, he’s got to think about the future and what’s going on.” But again, we know where he ends up in the first movie. Still, nothing has changed. That arrested development lasts for really a long time. For what, ostensibly 20 years or something after we meet him in season 1? So there wasn’t really any difference, any real change because the way that this guy is approaching his life and stuff really doesn’t alter. If I had a teddy bear that I could get high with, and I still got high, yeah, 100% [I’d be like John].
ScreenRant: So before I let you go, I do want to ask, what was it like practically fighting a teddy bear on a high school stage auditorium?
Max Burkholder: Weirdly enough, one of the shots I’m sure is him tackling me onto the ground during the audition scene, and they used a stunt guy for that. Ashton, thank you very much for always taking the hits for me. But rolling around and doing that was great. Bill, one of the cameramen, notoriously has a stone face and never laughs at anything, but there was a particular noise I was making while Ted was choking me out. Every time I made that noise, I saw Bill crack a smile. And if Bill is cracking a smile, I know that what I’m doing is f—-ng hilarious.
Be sure to dive into some of ScreenRant‘s other Ted season 2 coverage with:
Ted season 2 is available to stream in its entirety on Peacock.
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- Release Date
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2024 – 2024-00-00
- Network
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Peacock
- Directors
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Seth MacFarlane
- Writers
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Dana Gould, Jon Pollack, Brad Walsh, Julius Sharpe, Paul Corrigan, Seth MacFarlane
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Seth MacFarlane
Ted (voice)
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Max Burkholder
John Bennett
