Jason Segel Wants Us to Know That His ‘Freaks and Geeks’ Character Would Have Died in A War
On the nostalgic TV dramedy Freaks and Geeks, Jason Segel’s character Nick Andopolis was never going to be a world-famous drummer like his hero John Bonham — but he would have died young like one, apparently.
Of all the “gone too soon” TV shows from the late-1990s to early-2000s that enjoyed second lives as cult classics with devoted online followings long after cancellation, Freaks and Geeks is probably the last one that needs endless speculation over what would have happened if the original creators got to see their TV world out to its natural conclusion. After all, we know what happened to Middle America in the 1980s: It voted for Ronald Reagan, staggered through the recession and watched the gap between wages and GDP slowly widen into a gaping chasm.
But for the freaks and geeks of William McKinley High School, their current ending is a little too open for the Freaks and Geeks cast and crew’s taste. Series creator Paul Feig laid out his eventual plans for each character on the show in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair, explaining that the sensitive slacker Nick would cave in to his domineering father and join the army.
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Then, in a recent character breakdown for GQ, Segel took it one step further and suggested that the military would have sent Nick to die in war. Those Grenadians are even more heartless than Dimension.
Hilariously, Segel says that the Freaks and Geeks cast realized that the show was doomed when the offerings of the craft services table turned pitiful over the course of shooting. “At first, it was like beautiful cold cuts and all the stuff you would want,” Segel said of the on-set snacks. "And then it was like, all of the sudden, mini Corn Pops and dairy creamer. So people started looking at each other like, ‘Oh we’re getting canceled!'”
However, for as unceremonious as the end of Freaks and Geeks may have been, Nick’s finale would have been worse. “The sad answer to where I think Nick is now, in my mind, he gets sent off to war and doesn’t make it,” explained Segel. “That was always the threat looming for Nick, and that’s what happens to men of that generation and socioeconomic status.”
“That’s how I was always thinking of playing him is like, for Nick, the desperation for his character is that the alternative is not making it,” Segel continued. “That’s how he felt, like, ‘I’m gonna drum my way out of this.’ How sad, because you’re not going to drum your way out of it!”
Strangely, Segel may have gotten his generations mixed up, because the Nicks of 1980 didn’t really have a Vietnam War-style mass casualty military engagement looming over them. While it’s certainly possible that Nick would have been one of the unlucky few American military members who died in combat supporting the military dictatorship government in the Salvadoran Civil War, the 1980s were actually not a terrible time to be an American soldier when compared to previous couple of decades.
Then again, this might just be Segel wishing for a merciful end to his old character — after fumbling Linda Cardellini, death would be a release.
