The season 2 finale of Netflix's The Four Seasons introduced a new face, and the story of how he got there starts with Tina Fey saying one name.
Co-creator Tracey Wigfield recently explained how David Tennant came to play Gianpiero, an Italian neighbor who shares a brief but significant moment with Anne, played by Kerri Kenney-Silver, in the finale episode titled Maratona. Wigfield told Decider that Fey brought up Tennant immediately when the writers were thinking through who could fill the role.
"Tina, the first person she said was, 'Well, someone like David Tennant, like a David Tennant kind of guy, as her [Anne's] neighbor,'" Wigfield recalled. "We were so thrilled that we went to him first and he said yes. He flew in and we shot it — it was just the one scene — so we shot it in one day, and he's so lovely and he looks so good with Kerri."
The scene is set in Italy. Anne, whose ex-husband Nick died at the end of Season 1 after having impregnated another woman, spends Season 2 trying to rebuild herself. When her friends leave at the end of the finale, she decides to stay behind. She then meets Gianpiero in their shared courtyard after he received some of her mail.
Wigfield described what the moment was meant to accomplish for the show going forward. "Anne obviously has been on a journey in Season 1 and then Season 2 as well, you know, she's trying to be Anne 2.0 and have this sort of personal renaissance, but it's not going great. So there was something really exciting when we were thinking about a cliffhanger for a possible Season 3 of having a romantic cliffhanger, and someone that you would get so excited to see more stories with."
Season 2 of The Four Seasons is now streaming on Netflix. Along with Kenney-Silver, the season features Fey, Will Forte, Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani, and Erika Henningsen. Steve Carell appeared in Season 1 as Nick. No official announcement about a third season has been made.
