Yesterday, FX announced the cancellation of "Terriers" despite an outcry from TV critics and its relatively small (but loyal) fanbase. And according to "Terriers" creator Ted Griffin, the knowledge that the poor ratings had doomed the show didn't make the news any easier to take.
"It's like putting a dog down," Griffin told Hitfix "I knew it was limping, I knew it wasn't in good health, but it was still really tough to euthanize it. But in dog years, our show lasted seven seasons."
"I don't think this thing would've been nearly as good were it not [FX President] John Landgraf," continued Griffin. "We all had the same dog being put down. He went through in a lot of detail. My proudest moment was I said, 'It's fine by me if we stop doing the autopsy and start doing the wake.' He was showing how the pulse was dead, it wasn't breathing... It was the most amicable breakup of my life. And we kind of knew. The writing had been on the wall."
The "Terriers" season finale ended with Britt (Michael Raymond-James) at a crossroads, as his friend and partner, Hank (Donal Logue) offered him a choice: drive straight to prison or go left and flee to Mexico. While Griffin wasn't willing to reveal too much about how the second season would have gone, he did reveal what Britt would have done.
"I will only share this: that if you don't know which way that truck turns or doesn't turn at the end, you don't know Britt," confided Griffin. "He goes straight. The one thing, if there's anything to tie up from season one, is that in the first episode of season two, Katie would've come to Britt in prison with the paternity results, still unopened, and said, 'If you really don't want to know, then you tear it up.' The last scene of episode one was Britt taking that letter into the prison yard and opening it, and in a wide shot, we see him sort of punch the air in triumph. He's the dad."
Griffin also revealed that Neal McDonough would probably have returned in the second or third season as Cutshaw, the primary villain behind the Ocean Beach conspiracy that nearly saw the town destroyed to make way for an airport.
"The two big downers of the cancellation are it's a real nice family breaking up, and I will miss those characters," added Griffin. "I would have liked to watch them do more stuff."
