Summary
Terry and Korvo are madly in love for each other, and the world just might be in peril because of it, inSolar Oppositesseason 5. Co-created by Mike McMahan and showrun by theStar Trek: Lower Decksmastermind and Josh Bycel, the Hulu animated comedy has followed the journey of Korvo, Terry, Yumyulack and Jesse, four aliens from the planet Shlorp who come to Earth following the destruction of their home planet by an asteroid. As they grow accustomed to humankind and prepare a supercomputer being known as the Pupa to terraform the planet, the group frequently become wrapped up in sci-fi hijinks.
Solar Oppositesseason 5 picks upshortly after the events of both the season 4 finale and Valentine’s Day special, with the titular family living on a new planet and having reverted to their Shlorpian form after transforming into humans at the end of the prior season. As they head back to Earth, Terry and Korvo learn about the perks that come from being a married couple, including the joys of going on a honeymoon, while Jesse and Yumyulack attempt to find a way to gain some footing at school and learn their true purposes in the team.
Solar Opposites Season 5’s New Main Character Explained: Meet JK7
Solar Opposites just introduced an all-new main character in season 5, and here’s why this is a big deal for the show after its four-year run.
Dan Stevens and Thomas Middleditch return to leadthe ensembleSolar Oppositesseason 5 castas Korvo and Terry, alongside Sean Giambrone as Yumyulack, Mary Mack as Jesse, Christina Hendricks as Cherie, Tiffany Haddish as A.I.S.H.A., Kieran Culkin as Glen/Dodge Charger, Vanessa Marshall as Mia and Nolan North as Albert. As the worlds of the main family, The Wall and Silvercops also expand, the show has introduced a number of exciting new stars to its cast, includingMythic Quest’s Charlotte Nicdao,SpongeBob SquarePants' Clancy Brown,The Boys' Jack Quaid andThe Gilded Age’s Morgan Spector.
Ahead of the show’s return,Screen Rantinterviewed co-showrunners Mike McMahan and Josh Bycel and supervising producer Sydney Ryan to discussSolar Oppositesseason 5, how Terry and Korvo’s marriage changed the way they approached their stories, their grand plans for the future of The Wall and introducing Lang to the ensemble cast.
Terry & Korvo’s Non-Marriage Was “Hindering” The Team’s Storytelling Before Season 5
Though their romance was often on display in prior seasons,Solar Oppositesseason 5offers a bigger focus on Terry and Korvo’s marriage following the Valentine’s Day special, with many of their adventures actually finding them exploring everything from open communication to vulnerability. In reflecting on this storytelling, McMahan explains that not having them married “was actually hindering the kind of stories” the team wanted to tell, with Bycel teasing that the marriage also “softens Korvo” and Ryan loving watching the evolution of their relationship:
Mike McMahan: We were finding that having them not be married was actually hindering the kind of stories we wanted to tell. We felt like we had done a lot of stories where these guys have clearly been queer and in love for a long time, but just the way they defined it was something that they had to learn that they could do. There’s no marriage on Shlorp, they had to kind of learn about that, and more than the surface level. So, the Valentine’s Day episode leading into the season was so freeing for the writing process, because we had two big rules after that, especially for Korvo.
The two big rules were now that they’re married, and this feels so good, let’s tell stories about that. But the one type of story we can’t tell is threatening to break them up. We didn’t want to have people be like, “Oh, we’re given this, and it feels right, and we love to see them be in love, and we didn’t want to threaten that all the time, oh, they might be getting a divorce.” That was off the table, they’re going to be married from here on out, because it feels great to write stories about that. And that’s a natural thing when you think about, like, The Simpsons, even when they threaten divorce, you know they’re not going to, but because ours was so new, it was really important that we didn’t threaten that and then just to really let them be horny for each other.
Just let them be so horned up and just hot to trot, because it just feels right for these characters. And it’s so funny hearing Dan Stevens' voice saying the nastiest, horniest, alien stuff. It just brings me a lot of joy, so it was really cool to do this season and have it feel like how it’s always felt, but really codify it and just let it be a special part about the show, and then do crazy stuff around that.
Josh Bycel: Yeah, the only thing that I would add is, going back to the Valentine’s Day episode, when we were talking about it, we love doing holiday specials. We love the idea of doing a Valentine’s Day special, but you don’t normally see big, huge, groundbreaking series-changing moments in specials. So, we really loved, once we got to the end, that they were going to get married in the Valentine’s Day special, and then it would affect the show moving forward. We love that, because it’s something that we always try to do, is subverting storytelling. Nobody watched the Valentine’s Day special expecting the two main characters to get married, so that was something that we really, really, really love doing. And, I also think it softens Korvo’s character, because they’re never going to break up, but he’s constantly worried that Terry’s going to leave him, so we loved that as a sort of new shadow for his character, as well.
Sydney Ryan: Yeah, I just love, as a non-writer, seeing Korvo and Terry’s relationship evolve, and them getting to go on a honeymoon together, and just seeing how comfortable they are in their relationship. They have a really nice rapport, and it’s sweet to see how their love has progressed since season 1.
Season 5’s The Backyard Sets Up An Epic Return To The Wall
Amidst the humorous shenanigans of the titular family,Solar Oppositeshas also followed a large population of humans shrunk by Yumyulack and Jesse and left in a terrarium now known as The Wall, in which an endless war of classes wages.Season 5 expands the world of The Wallwith The Backyard, a whole host of new communities living in the open plains of the Solar-Opposites' backyard, which brings a Western twist to the story. Bycel describes the new setting’s tone as “SilveradomeetsChinatownmeetsThe Last of Us”, while McMahan teases that it will lead to an epic return to The Wall in season 6:
Josh Bycel: We teased it a little bit in the one season with Cherie and the Duke in The Backyard. But I think, as we started talking about season 5 so long ago now, we really felt like we’ve done so much in The Wall, and we will come back to The Wall in season 6. In fact, season 5 is an entire setup to going back to The Wall in season 6. But it just felt like a chance to expand our little world, if you will. And we love, too, the idea of these little people being out of The Wall and in The Backyard.
We do a different genre every year, and we really wanted to do, like you said, I say it’s like Silverado meets Chinatown meets The Last of Us is the way I’ve been describing it. No one’s asked me to describe it that way, but I am describing it that way. So, I think that that was really important for us. And the only other thing I’ll add is that our board artists and designers, and everyone on our production team, we come to them with the craziest, hugest, biggest asks, and they always, always, always make it better and always come to play. They did an amazing job with The Backyard this year.
Mike McMahan: You know, I think about Robert Kirkman’s original pitch for The Walking Dead comics, which, when they were first coming out, just blew me away, because I grew up watching the original of the Deads, like Dawn of the Dead, and Night of the Living Dead and all that. His original pitch was, “What if it’s a zombie movie that just never ends?” And the idea that we started the first season of Solar Opposites with little people being put in The Wall, and it’s like War of the Roses, that’s also kind of an Escape from New York, and that we would ultimately end up with a creature feature, and all these different people trying to take over.
Last season, we did a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Wall story with a religious kind of coup. This season would be that small city states have been formed on the frontier of The Backyard, the identity of The Backyard, which, Josh is right, we had set up before, they were always pushing forward with the genre, but that we still want there to be comedy, and we want there to be crazy stakes. It’s always such a joy to write, and it’s always a great balance from like, “Oh, you know, the Solar story being that Terry gets his foot stuck in a toilet,” and then you go to The Wall side of it, and it’s like, “Oh, capitalism is another way to be a fascist in, some ways.” You know what I mean?
That those two stories can live in the same show feels like that crazy kind of basket of Halloween candy, where you never know what you’re gonna get. There’s all these things that are existing at the same time, and it’s just a blast to do every season. And Josh is right, it’s leading into another season of The Wall in season 6 that’s maybe our best yet, and really brings back dynamics from the very first season. So, it’ll be a huge reward for people who have been watching this whole time.
Sydney Ryan: Yeah, I love that we go into The Backyard this season and shake it all up, and then season 6 will be back in The Wall. But the drama of The Wall is so epic that it pairs so nicely with the Solar silliness and goofiness that, without each other — you know, they play so nicely off of each other. It’s fun to watch, but I love seeing the artists really have fun being like, “Okay, what could they use to make this cart to go across The Backyard. And what could we use to do this?” So, the artists had a lot of fun with it, and they did an incredible job on creating a whole new world in the backyard.
Mike McMahan: Also, Clancy Brown, Charlotte Nicdao, we’ve got all these stars that are awesome to get to work with, and we get to have them be dramatic and say funny stuff. The Wall is just really fun to ride.
Solar Oppositesseason 5 also continues the show’s trend of featuring iconic sci-fi actors in supporting roles, withAvatar’s Stephen Lang portraying Sergeant Argent, the two-headed drill instructor at the SilverCop bootcamp, with the second head voiced byHarley Quinn’s Ron Funches. In reflecting on casting the former for the role, McMahan praised Lang as being “the real deal” and for fully embracing the oddball comedy of the show, with Bycel and Ryan remarking on the joy of casting actors like Lang:
Mike McMahan: The guy’s the real deal. He’s such a strong and talented actor, I think for us, working with Stephen was like having a Maserati and going the speed limit. Because he’s so good at that that he just had to do a comedic version of it, and in those Silvercops episodes, as well, we had Jack Quaid back, and because Jack’s a huge fan of Solar Opposites, and he plays such a different role than he does on Lower Decks in this. Silvercops, like The Wall, gets us outside of our usual team of players, and we get to work with, like, Kieran Culkin and just all these voices that you kind of don’t expect to be coming in and texturizing the show. Honestly, the folks we work with on the show are some of our best actors, and they all have a blast working with us, because they get to have more fun. They get to they get to say crazier, dumber, sillier s–t, and get big laughs that usually don’t get to go to serious actors. Especially Stephen, because that was really fun to get to do.
Josh Bycel: I’m just a huge fan. I didn’t get to record him, Mike did, but I’m a huge fan of everything. So, just to be able to have someone with that gravitas in that role saying the stupidest things. And the best thing about that is that Ron Funches plays his second head, and obviously, in animation, you don’t record them together, but they play off each other so well. Stephen is so serious and has so much gravitas, and Ron is so funny that that, to me, was the funniest dynamic. That’s one of my favorite relationships.
Sydney Ryan: Yeah, it’s just fun. Our casting department, we have a really fun time casting these shows and playing around with actors from all these different genres. But getting to work with Christina Hendricks and Tiffany Haddish and all these amazing people, in addition to our incredible main cast, it’s really fun.
AboutSolar OppositesSeason 5
“Solar Opposites” centers around a team of four aliens who are evenly split on whether Earth is awful or awesome. Korvo (Dan Stevens) and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) only see the pollution, crass consumerism, and human frailty, while Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) love TV, junk food and fun stuff. In season five, now that alien mission partners Terry and Korvo are married, the whole Solar Opposites team are focused on family values.
Stay tuned for our otherSolar Oppositesseason 5 interview with Thomas Middleditch and Sean Giambrone!
Solar Oppositesseason 5 is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
Solar Opposites
Cast
Solar Opposites is a Hulu adult animation series that centers on a family of aliens. After moving to America, they bicker about whether the country is better than their home planet. The series was created by Mike McMahan and Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, with characters voiced by Thomas Middleditch, Sean Giambrone, and Mary Mack.
