Jon Hamm Breaks Down Grimsburg Season 1 Finale, Season 2 Progress, Fletch Sequel & More

Warning: SPOILERS for Grimsburg season 1, episode 13, "The Danish Dilemma"!

Summary Flute faces major obstacles in the Grimsburg season 1 finale, including being framed for murder and locked up in prison.

Hamm teases that the major twist in the finale will lead to some major changes in season 2, with the creative team also pushing for more of an office comedy in the next season.

Hamm also addresses the chances of a Confess, Fletch sequel, and Top Gun 3 return, remaining cautiously optimistic about both.

Marvin Flute's world is being flipped on its head in the Grimsburg season 1 finale. The Fox animated comedy centers on the gruff detective working in the titular fictional town plagued by frequent serial murderers. At the same time, Flute tries his hardest to get back in the good graces of his ex-wife, Harmony, and his estranged son, Stan, and rebuild some semblance of the family dynamic he left behind prior to the start of the show.

The Grimsburg season 1 finale finds Flute embarking on another typical nonsense investigation as he searches for the thief of his favorite danish from the police station, though his efforts find him wrapped up in a major conspiratorial web that leads to him being framed for murder and locked up in prison. It's ultimately revealed that the true perpetrator is actually Chief Stamos, whose son took the fall for one of her prior murders earlier in the season. With the help of his coworkers, namely his cyborg partner Summers, Flute is able to clear his name and prevent the Chief from committing a mass murder of the town's most prominent figures.

Related Jon Hamm’s 10 Best Roles (That Aren't Don Draper) Jon Hamm might be known for playing Don Draper, but in his other roles he has shown great comedic timing, and proved he can do much more than that.

Emmy and Golden Globe winner Jon Hamm leads the ensemble Grimsburg cast as Flute alongside Greg Chun, Rachel Dratch, Erinn Hayes, Kevin Michael Richardson, Alan Tudyk in a dual role, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Kaniehtiio Horn and Rosie Perez. The show has not only garnered generally positive reviews from critics and audiences alike but also saw an early vote of confidence from Fox as it was greenlit for a second season over a year before the show even premiered.

In honor of the season 1 finale, Screen Rant interviewed Jon Hamm to discuss Grimsburg, the major twists that came in the episode, what the Chief's fate means for season 2 of the show, and how far along in production the next season is. Hamm also discusses the chances of a Confess, Fletch sequel coming to fruition and his possible return for Top Gun 3.

Hamm Enjoys The Opportunity To Be "Wacky & Silly" With Animation

In addition to continuing Hamm's return to television following Good Omens, The Morning Show, and Fargo season 5, Grimsburg continues the actor's recent trend of exploring the animated genre, having lent his voice to the likes of fellow Fox comedy Bless the Harts, Marvel's M.O.D.O.K. and the upcoming Transformers One. The star finds this new avenue of acting to be a really fun one to explore, particularly as it "lends the opportunity to be a lot more wacky":

Jon Hamm: It's fun, obviously, you're not constrained by anything physical when you're doing stuff like that. And it lends the opportunity to be a lot more wacky and silly and goofy and really explore the jokes. And that's what the writers have really done, especially as the first season has gone on. And really, especially in the second season, the show really opens up from a comedic standpoint. I think it's wildly more funny. I just finished some work on three or four episodes of season 2 last night, in fact, just tightening up jokes and making them even funnier. It's just a really fun thing to get a chance to do, and I think people are responding to it. There hasn't been something in this kind of playground for a while, it kind of dabbles in the bizarre and the macabre a little bit more than most animated shows do. So, it's a little bit differently fun. And I think people are finding that as they discover the show, that it's not just a cop show, it's got a procedural element to it, but it's got really funny fun characters, and a very well-defined, bizarre sense of space that the writers really get to explore.

With his position as an executive producer on the show, Hamm has also had the chance to work closely with showrunner, Chadd Gindin, to improvise some of his material, while also getting the opportunity to find his character's voice, which he humorously says he stole from Will Arnett:

Jon Hamm: There's quite a lot of improv that I'm encouraged to do, actually, by our showrunner, Chadd Gindin, who I think you're talking with, as well. He's on almost every one of the calls and on the record, so I'll pitch ideas, and I'll try things out in the record that, when we're in an early stage, we're not trying to match to lip movements or anything like that. That'll sometimes get a laugh, most often won't get a laugh, but you got to break some eggs to make an omelet. So sometimes, my improvs aren't used, but I have gotten a few in there that have made either Chadd or someone else on the call laugh, and that's always fun. It's something that happened in the moment, or something that's recent, you know, maybe a little bit timely that you can make a gag about. So, that's a pretty fun aspect of it, too, is to really have that back and forth, and not be so locked into what it's going to be, because, as we all know, animation takes some time to actually get from point A to point B. It was kind of about how do we want him to really sound, how do we want it to be conceived? So, there's a lot of it that we were just trying to figure, at the very least, what's funny. I think once we'd established his look, we were kind of like, "What does this guy sound like? What do we think is gonna make him laugh?" And then, by extension, "How does he get along with the people and elements in this world?" And it sort of came out pretty organically from there, it was a very natural process to find his voice. I leaned on what I think a lot of people lean on when they think of gruff voice actors, my good friend, Will Arnett, so I just thought, "Okay, well, maybe I'll just steal a little from his tambour and go from there."

Grimmsburg Season 1 Finale's Big Twist Was A "Pleasant Surprise" For Hamm

Despite seemingly being a goofy-yet-loyal character to Flute throughout the show, Grimmsburg's season 1 finale reveals McClendon-Covey's Chief Ramos is the ultimate mastermind behind many of the murders in the season. With the twist being so closely attached to the overall story of season 1, Hamm teases that there are a variety of Easter eggs hinting at this big reveal, which came as a "pleasant surprise" to the producer/star:

Jon Hamm: I didn't know, really, it was sort of a pleasant surprise. A lot of us came together over the last few years, and what we really wanted, I think, in producing the show and kind of establishing the first season was we wanted some sort of overarching, season-long mystery to solve. I think we'd get an audience attracted to it, and keep people coming back, and what have you. That was the plan for the first season was we needed something kind of big that was going to knit all of these things together. I think that's what the Chief storyline really did. In season 2, we get a lot less of the desire to have that overarching story, and the show kind of becomes more of an office comedy in some ways. So, it's less about the big picture and more about the unique little fun stories that we can get, and what kind of capers happened in Grimsburg, and what kind of interactions do the new Chief and Flute and Kang and everybody have together, and what sort of scrapes do they get into. And the writers are really having a lot more fun with that, once they were freed up from having to make sure that there was some kind of overarching thing which, like I said, we wanted for the first season. But we, I think wisely, moved away from that into a much more episodic element in the second season, which is just meant to be a lot more free and funny. Yeah, for eagle-eyed viewers, there's always some fun things to look back. I think once the reveal is revealed, you can certainly, in retrospect, look back and go, "Yeah, well, that's why that makes a little more sense" or, "That's a little funnier in how that person was behaving." The writers weren't just winging it, they were making these decisions very consciously. So, it is funny, that's one of my favorite parts of watching animated stuff is re-streaming and looking around and seeing what little jokes the writers have put into the deep frame, or what's written on post-it notes, or what have you. Every inch of that frame is mined for laugh, often, so for our viewers, get out your magnifying glasses.

Grimsburg Season 2 Will See Some Major Changes For Flute

With Ramos' plan defeated and the position of Chief now up for grabs, Hamm is careful about sharing too much about what's to come in Grimsburg season 2, though he does tease that the new choice is someone who will cause major problems for his character. In regards to Flute's relationship with Harmony, the actor and producer indicates that those hopeful for a reconciliation between the two may have a long time to wait:

Jon Hamm: Well, they're definitely promoted from inside the department, so I'll let you sort of go from there. But yeah, there was some back and forth as to, "Well, who would want that job? Who would want to step up and take that thing?" And we had a little fun with that as well. I don't want to just blurt it out, but it's a natural extension of the story, and it makes sense in the world of Grimsburg. And, of course, Marvin is not happy with it, and it causes some consternation in his work life, so there's humor to be mined from that, as well. What we decided with the Harmony thing is we wanted to — it sounds very strange, given the elevated nature of the reality in Grimsburg and the fact that Harmony was raised by bears, and there's all these things that aren't necessarily real — we did want to make the relationship between those two characters sort of resonate from a real sense. And sometimes, when a relationship ends like that, there isn't a reconciliation, and maybe that's the best way forward is to co-parent apart. We've all seen many examples of that in our own lives, and, once again, it doesn't need to be forever, but it certainly is for now. I think that's how we decided to bring Flute a little more into the office world, and a little less into the family world. Obviously, his son and his ex-wife are still part of the family, that will never change. But we focus more in season 2 about the work stuff, because I think that's where the funny is.

Confess, Fletch's Sequel Script Is "Ready To Go" (But Likely Not Any Time Soon)

In looking at his future outside Grimsburg, Hamm remains forever hopeful that his and writer/director Greg Mottola's planned Confess, Fletch sequel will get off the ground at some point. That said, he does recognize that studio shakeups and the box office underperformance of the 2022 comedy reboot could cause problems for the sequel:

Jon Hamm: We have a script, I don't really have a lot of specificity on it. It would be the next script would be the next book in the series, which is Fletch's Fortune, and it's sort of loosely set in the journalism world, which is very interesting, I think, and weirdly timely given the fact that the book was written in the '70s, and it's somehow even more timely now. But the problem is Miramax has been bought and sold, who owns the rights, so we're kind of waiting to see how that shakes out. The situation at Paramount, I think everybody's kind of waiting to see what's happening with Paramount, as well. [Chuckles] So, there's some corporate intrigue that we're kind of waiting to see where the dust settles with that, but we're ready to go with the next chapter in it as soon as we can. I loved playing the part, Greg loved writing it, and I thought what we did with it was fun and funny. I actually ran into Chevy Chase in the airport, which was lovely, and he couldn't have been nicer. Our stated objective wasn't to try to remake Chevy's version of Fletch, we really wanted to make it our own and give it its own tone and sensibility, and I think we did, and people really responded to it. But, the business aspect of it wasn't as successful as we'd hoped, but that also is kind of a weird fact of the new media landscape. And in some ways, the metric of success for film is so completely different now. I've had people from friends of mine to former students of mine to President Obama and David Zaslav tell me how much they loved the movie. [Chuckles] So, it's definitely resonating with people, and I think people did enjoy it. So hopefully, we can start the engine on the next one sooner rather than later, and keep them coming, because I've been such a fan of the books for so long, and was really excited to get a chance to put my own spin on it, and really loved doing it.

Hamm Hasn't Heard About A Potential Top Gun 3 Return (But Seems Confident)

Another major franchise Hamm added to his filmography recently was Top Gun: Maverick, playing the hard-headed commanding officer pushing against Tom Cruise's titular hero. With a Top Gun 3 in the works, Hamm is uncertain whether he'll be back for the threequel, but remains confident for a few reasons:

Jon Hamm: I have not had any official talks. I was very happy to hear that they're gonna make another one. I think the response to the second one was — let's be honest, the response to both of them has been pretty great, and I was very happy to be a part of the second one. I'm pretty good friends with Jerry Bruckheimer, so I'm sure if there's plans for Cyclone to come back, I'll hear about it sooner rather than later. But I know that these things take quite a long time to put together and realize in the way that people like Tom and people like Jerry Bruckheimer are very careful with putting those things together. Joe Kosinski did such an amazing job over the course of four years making that movie that if I hear, it probably won't be anytime soon. [Chuckles] I don't think they're going to be lighting into production anytime soon, but I would certainly love to be back. That'd be great.

About Grimsburg

Close

Grimsburg, starring and executive-produced by Emmy Award winner Jon Hamm (Mad Men), centers on Marvin Flute (Hamm), who may be the greatest detective ever to catch a cannibal clown and correctly identify a mid-century modern armoire. But there’s one mystery he still can’t crack — himself. To do that, he must return to Grimsburg, a town where everyone has a secret or three, and redeem himself in the eyes of his fellow detectives, his ferocious ex-wife and his lovably unstable son.

Grimsburg is produced by FOX Entertainment’s Emmy-winning animation studio, Bento Box Entertainment. The program is fully owned by FOX Entertainment. Chadd Gindin is executive producer and showrunner. Jon Hamm, Gail Berman, Hend Baghdady and Connie Tavel are executive producers. Catlan McClelland and Matthew Schlissel created the series and serve as co-executive producers.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

The entirety of Grimsburg season 1 is available to stream on Hulu.