Ray Donovan died this week, allowing every extant human on the planet to add “Outlasted the end of Ray Donovan” to their resumes, for the rest of their lives. Given that the Liev Scheiber-starring Parade O’ Bad Boys ran for 7 seasons on Showtime—which is to say, 82 episodes, which is to say, 7 years of human existence—you might think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone willing to go on the record suggesting that more Ray Donovan is what the planet needed. And yet, you’d be wrong, thanks to series showrunner David Hollander, who seems to be legitimately upset that 7 seasons of Ray Donovan is all that we’re collectively going to get.
This is per Vulture, which talked to Hollander about his reaction to the cancellation—including the fact that no one at Showtime gave him any indication it was coming, despite the show being one of its longest-running and most solid sources of large white men glowering into the middle distance. (Also: Ratings.) Among other things, the showrunner was (understandably) annoyed that he had been given no indication that he should have maybe been wrapping things up as the show’s seventh season rolled along, which is why Ray and his various associates ended the season in even rougher shape than usual. It seems to be especially irritating in so far as the show’s sixth season did end on a fairly finale-ready note, with Hollander noting that, “We were pretty burned out. It felt like the end,” until Showtime reportedly begged for the show to come back. Plus, Hollander was planning to bring the whole story to a close in Season 8 in any case.
“Every other year, it was them dragging us out kicking and screaming,” Hollander said, noting that bringing the Rays and the Donovans of the world together has never exactly been a picnic. “We were so used to it being the other way, where we were burned out by a show that was very hard to make and the network would pull us and cajole us and push us. We were used to being a show that was not canceled. We never thought we would be canceled.” He also noted that money—including increasing performer costs, an expensive move to New York, and the status of the CBS-Viacom merger, all likely impacted the news.
Hollander seems legitimately bummed out to leave the show’s not-inconsiderable legions of fans hanging, and hopes that the show will be remembered for its “poetic inside and a really hard-boiled outside,” which is also how we like to remember our eggs. “They knew that they would get emotional stories,” Hollander continued of the show’s fanbase, “But they would also get the explosions, the violence, and the unpredictable behavior of the characters,” like that time that Jon Voight’s character Mickey [FIND OUT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED ON RAY DONOVAN, INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE], which we can all agree was a moment that showed the series at its [INSERT APPROPRIATE CLOSING ADJECTIVE HERE]