PRODUCTION/CULTURAL REFERENCES (written on 7/4/16)
-I started writing the episode last Tuesday, went through some writer's block for a bit, then powered through and finished it last night. I was considering putting it up last night, but held it back just in case I wanted to make any last-minute edits.
-Looking back at my notes, the episode's ending was slightly different. Originally, the girls were going to beat down Testicular Sound Express and Sarah at her house until Jaylynn stepped in and went after them. The fight scene actually turned out very well and I felt like it would have been redundant to have Jaylynn fight Sonja three times in the same episode.
-I forgot to mention this in the last Backstage Pass, but part one of "Going Back to Portland" was two days removed from the four-year anniversary of the pilot episode. I was going to have the original season finale coincide with the anniversary date (at one point even planning to release it on June 24) but plans changed when I decided not to have the kids move up a grade.
-For a long time, I felt like I never had a handle on Sarah's character but I felt like she really shined here playing off of Jaylynn. I'm going to keep that in mind for season five, but I have no plans to include her in any future episodes right now.
-I was originally going to do a dramatic opening parodying how recaps go for two-part episodes of TV shows, but I already did that for "Slice of Fantastica" so I just played it straight.
-The Michael Jackson debate was actually inspired by a Charlamagne tha God interview I watched where he argued with DJ Vlad over what the better MJ album was, Off the Wall or Thriller. I lean more towards the Thriller side right now but as a joke, I decided to have RK be the only one on that side, with everyone else thinking the answer was so obvious.
-Jaylynn makes an Arthur reference when she calls Halley "D.W."
-Legs references LeBron James' re-signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the 2014-2015 NBA season, after initially leaving the team in the summer of 2010 for the Miami Heat.
-Sparky references the Holly Holm/Ronda Rousey fight at UFC 193 last November. Holm gave Rousey the first loss of her career when she upset her for the UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship.
-The scene at Sarah's house was hard to write like a lot of dramatic scenes are, especially the part where Sparky gives up and leaves. I wanted to really get across his emotions the most, someone who has known Jaylynn for a long time and felt like his whole world was collapsing.
-I wanted to have more interaction between Buster and Skylar, but it just didn't work out with everything else going on in the episode. It's very unlikely Sonja or her crew is going to appear again on the show, but anything can change.
-There was no way I could give Jaylynn a dramatic line without it sounding cheesy, so I added some self-awareness.
-One of the things I really forgot to include in this two-parter is the status of Jaylynn's old house so I just decided to address it at the end.
-I really enjoyed writing the post-credits gag. I came up with the idea of Anja smacking Jaylynn in my notes and decided to just run with it. I only included it because she had mentioned doing it to Jaylynn in the past and I thought it could work as retribution for Jaylynn's actions in this episode.