PRIME MEMBER EXCLUSIVE STREAM NEW SEASON SEPTEMBER 8 PRIME MEMBER EXCLUSIVE SEPTEMBER 8 Synopsis Groundbreaking comedian Tig Notaro returns for Season Two of the acclaimed Amazon Studios series One Mississippi, inspired by her own life and family. Long admired for her deadpan observational comedy, Notaro plays Tig, a story-telling L.A. disc jockey who moves back to her quaint Mississippi hometown after her mother dies. Love is in the air in when we pick back up with Tig, her stepfather Bill (John Rothman) and her brother Remy (Noah Harpster), living together again in the family’s home in Mississippi. It’s a season of new beginnings and new relationships for each of them, all of which test their personal status quo...as well as family boundaries. Tig resumes her radio career in Biloxi with producer Kate (Stephanie Allynne) by her side, though her outspoken point of view proves controversial for the local market. An opportunity to take a bigger stage in New Orleans comes with more reach, and also more responsibility. Starring: Tig Notaro Noah Harpster John Rothman Sheryl Lee Ralph Stephanie Allynne Carly Jibson Executive Producers: Kate Robin Tig Notaro Blair Breard Diablo Cody Louis C.K. Dave Becky Producer: Lori-Etta Taub ABOUT THE PRODUCTION SEASON 2 HIGHLIGHTS A Second Life As a character, Tig shares her creator’s low-key, laconic speaking style and tendency to sneak up on a punch line before delivering it with uncanny precision. Lanky and boyish, Tig’s view of the world is an accurate representation of the real woman. “The character in the show is essentially me,” she acknowledges. “It’s not a huge stretch. It’s how I believe I would react to the fictionalized things that happen. It’s like having a second life. It’s fun being presented with situations that I haven’t experienced.” The biggest difference between Notaro and her alter-ego, she says, is that she returned to her life in Los Angeles as soon as she was well enough to do so. Her character, on the other hand, feels compelled to reconnect with her past in order to move forward into the future. “She recognizes the need to make things right and not skip over whatever issues are lingering,” says Notaro. “Her health problems are the initial reason she stays and then she meets a woman who gives her a reason to keep staying. Because she’s there, she is forced to deal with her past in a way that is ultimately healthy.” In Season Two, the show also places more focus on the lives of Tig’s brother Remy and their stepfather Bill. Portrayed by Noah Harpster and John Rothman, respectively, the characters were originally inspired by Notaro’s real-life family members, but have taken on lives of their own, says Robin. This season, both characters have independent, largely fictionalized, storylines, as they work to reestablish a sense of normalcy. Along with Tig, they are reconnecting with the world and opening themselves to the possibility of new love. “Sometimes we refer back to the traits of the actual people, but the actors really own the parts,” says Robin. Notaro made headlines in 2012 when she decided to make a detour from her usual wry observational comedy and “There’s no way that Tig’s real brother or stepfather would watch the show and say, ‘that happened to me.’ incorporate some painful and highly personal material into her set at a Los Angeles club. Opening her act with the We’re using the truth of the emotion and not the truth of the events.” words, “Good evening. Hello. I have cancer,” Notaro mesmerized her audience with a savagely honest, touching Notaro readily admits this is the largest and most challenging acting role she has taken on and she is grateful to and often funny account of a four-month period in which she lost her mother in a freak accident, ended a long-term have experienced players around her. “Being in scenes with John and Noah is both fun and enriching,” she says. relationship and was diagnosed with cancer in both breasts, as well as a life-threatening bacterial infection. “They give me a lot to play off of. The family dynamic is like mine but heightened. My actual stepfather is way more Tig’s monologue went viral and it eventually became the inspiration for One Mississippi, the poignant, mordantly approachable and purposefully funny. The way John plays Bill, he is funny in mostly accidental ways. My stepfather funny Amazon series now beginning its second season. The pilot, created by Notaro and Juno scribe Diablo Cody, is certainly accidentally funny a lot of times, but he also has a great sense of humor.” follows a story-telling radio personality, also named Tig, who returns to the small southern town in which she grew up to be with her dying mother, while still recovering from a serious illness herself. A blend of sharply observed commentary, intensely personal revelations and absurdist flights of fancy, One Mississippi channels Notaro’s own deadpan comic style into an alter ego that both is and isn’t her. Although the pilot was about 85 percent factual, Notaro says, from that point on the story departs from reality in numerous important ways. “I had just come out of a physically and emotionally horrible time,” she explains. “This was a way I could tell my story, but tell it more creatively and take it in different directions. I needed to rake through the details and talk about it, but as time went on, I became more open to fictionalizing. That was therapeutic in a whole different way.” When the pilot, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said,Orange is the New Black), was picked up for a six-episode run on Amazon, writer and producer Kate Robin came on board as showrunner. Robin, best known for her work on Six Feet Under, says that after viewing the pilot she knew she would be at home with One Mississippi’s bold and original comic skew. “It was honest and hilarious at the same time,” she says. “That felt so right to me. Left to my own devices, that’s the tone of my own work. I had been aware of Tig as a comedian for a long time, but like many people, I was just coming to really know her in a deeper way. She went to a place of incredible vulnerability and exposed difficult, intimate truths about life.” In Season One, Tig’s settled life in Los Angeles with her longtime girlfriend implodes, and she decides to stay in her Mississippi hometown for a while. Moving in with her stepfather Bill (John Rothman) and brother Remy (Noah Harpster), she hopes to unravel a lifetime of misunderstandings and emotional misfires. With the second season, Notaro and Robin have taken the show even further into fictional territory. “It’s possible that the show has become even more honest because of that,” Notaro observes. “Much of it is based on real situations, mine or somebody else’s from the writers room. We did that in the first season as well, but it’s even more so now.” An unconventional blend of genres, One Mississippi defies simple description. “It’s a unique format, really,” says Robin. “We’re interested in psychology and nuance and expressing emotion fully and truthfully. This season, Tig is rediscovering her joy in life in a way that is more profound because of her previous losses.” A former member of the Upright Citizen’s Brigade and Groundlings comedy troupes, Allynne had initially only planned on writing for the series, but as the character based on her developed, everyone involved in the show felt strongly that she should play Kate. “This season tracks the genesis of our relationship, although in a somewhat fictionalized way,” she says. “There are things in the series that aren’t true to our lives, but that serve the storyline. It’s fun to play with what we were feeling in a different context.” Kate is struggling with her sexuality, which was a big obstacle for the couple in real life. “Kate is blindsided by love,” Allynne says. “She struggles with intimacy and she struggles with labels. I always thought of myself as straight, but all of a sudden I was something else, something I didn’t totally identify as. You like to think you know yourself. Well, I didn’t think I was gay, so I felt like I didn’t really know myself at all. When we meet Kate, she seems confident and sure of herself and then she isn’t.” Remy finds acceptance and domestic stability with Desiree, a bubbly and outgoing single mom he meets at church. “It’s wonderful for him to find someone who loves him and believes in him the way he is,” says Harpster. “The writers did a great job making Desiree a well-rounded character. She brings a genuine warmth and joy to this family. She believes in family and honoring commitments and love with a capital L. But some of her beliefs shock the family. They have to accept that we all have our ways of understanding the world.” Broadway veteran Carly Jibson plays Desiree with oblivious confidence and exuberance. “Desiree just bursts into Remy’s life in very surprising, vivid, powerful ways,” says Robin. “Carly’s performance is hilarious and deep. She’s phenomenal.” Bill also finds an unexpected love interest in a woman with whom he has a long-running office-elevator acquaintance. Sheryl Lee Ralph joins the cast as Felicia, a businesswoman who has more in common with Bill than either of them suspect.