Merchant of death? Sure, Dan Merchant gained industry cred as a producer, writer and director for the zombie-focused Syfy horror series Z Nation and is currently performing all those services on Going Home, the hospice-centered dramedy he created currently streaming on Great American Pure Flix but once you talk with him you realize what he’s really selling is the appreciation of life.

JWK: How did you come up with the idea for this show? It’s kind of a difficult subject to take on for a TV series.

Dan Merchant: It is, absolutely. Interestingly, the idea for Going Home sort of landed upon my head in the heart of the pandemic. So, I have to imagine that the body count from Covid 19 that would flash in the lower right corner of every TV newscast must have worked its way into my brain somewhere – probably, also, the lockdown and the pause where we all took a minute to go “How am I doing with the life I’m leading?” and “What’s happening?” and “What’s important to me?” A little existential contemplation moment there.

From that, this idea just popped into my head. The notion of a medical where we’re not trying to save the patient got into my head. I had family experience with grandparents and so on and even my mom who had been through hospice. I started thinking about hospice nurses and got stuck on this one thought of these really fond memories of hospice nurses who always seemed to say the right thing. I’m like how did they know how to do that? Death is so hard but they always just knew what to say. How did they do that?

So, when we started researching the show I asked hospice nurses and they go “It’s really important for us to be present.” And that’s what it’s about. If you’re present then it’s not that difficult to hear what people need. I just thought there’s the heart of the show. So, we kind of went and developed the show from there – but that was the seed of it. That’s the germ of Going Home.

JWK: So, you do have experience with hospice in your own background.

DM: Yes, I do. Since we started doing the show I’ve had more. My father passed during the filming of Season 1.

JWK: I’m sorry.

DM: Thank you. He entered hospice just after we finished writing the scripts. So, the research and the work on the show were actually a few months ahead of my own personal experience with my dad going into hospice (at the end of) his cancer struggle. So, it was a little bit of life informing art and, also actually more so, art informing life because, as we moved through the journey in real life with my father, I was putting into practice so many of the things we had researched and written about and I had heard directly from hospice nurses while we were developing Going Home. So, it was really helpful to me.

I think at a certain point it occurred to me (that) we’re making a really entertaining show about a tough topic that nobody wants to talk about but it’s actually a very beautiful time – a difficult time in people’s lives but it can be beautiful and here are some things that hospice nurses do that make that possible. (I thought) “Hey! This show could be helpful as well as entertaining!” So, it was a very interesting way that life and art were sort of intertwined in the process of making Season 1.

JWK: When I was talking with Cynthia Geary about her role in the show we touched on how Going Home is reminiscent of  some shows from another era of television. It’s got a little bit of a feel of Providence, even a little bit of M*A*S*H.

DM: Right!

JWK: Were you influenced by those kind of shows?

DM: Yeah.  I mean I grew up on those shows. I love a show that leads with its humanity. I feel like Going Home leads with its humanity. In Season 2, particularly, it’s a little funnier. It’s a little faster paced. It’s a little lighter. There’s humor, there’s warmth and there’s heartbreak – and difficult things in moving through this difficult space but there is beauty in it. The big lesson I learned from the hospice nurses was that death isn’t the opposite of life – or isn’t the failed part of life – it’s part of life. Death is just part of the same journey which I know sounds rudimentary but I just never thought about it like that. It’s like “Oh, yeah.” If you think about (typical TV) medical dramas (they portray death as) the opposite of life.

So that was why it was important for us in Season 2 (in the) the storyline that we lead with in Episodes 1 & 2 with George Newbern and Gloria Reuben as our amazing guest stars. It really kind of touches on that a little bit. He’s the oncologist who’s trying to save his wife dying of cancer – and he can’t. He’s helpless! He has to confront the fact that this is a reality for him now. Now it’s a reality. How do you deal with it? That’s where I think the beauty of this part of our human journey gets dramatized really nicely on Going Home. We’re really proud of that. We really kind of lean into that – that the hard part that no one wants to talk about, that’s the feature not the bug of Going Home.

JWK: The show is attracting a lot of well-known performers in guest starring roles.

DM: Yeah, we’re so excited! It’s interesting the people that respond to the material. Cynthia Geary, who was Emmy-nominated for Northern Exposure back in the day, loves the depth, complexity and the messy humaness of the Charley part. She’s just such a wonderful lead on the show. Then to be able to get people like Emmy winner from ER Gloria Reuben (is amazing). The Emmy-nominated actress from thirtysomething Mel Harris came on. George Newbern who you know from Father of the Bride (was great). Then Indiana Jones‘ wife came and did the show! I’ve been a fan of Karen Allen and the fifty (or so) amazing movies that she’s been a part of through her incredible career! So, what we got were really talented, experienced actors who love a nice juicy dramatic scene. They just came in and they were so wonderful to work with. The did such a great job. They embraced the project wholeheartedly. You know, actors like to act and Going Home has some really powerful scenes. They got to come in and just remind you why they’re so great and why they’ve had such rich, long careers. Mel was phenomenal, Gloria was phenomenal, Karen was phenomenal, in addition to a bunch of regional actors and lesser-known character actors that came in and just did beautiful parts. Going Home is an actor’s showcase, it really is.

JWK: You film in the state of Washington, right?

DM: Yeah.’

JWK: So, I guess you attract talented actors – including some unknown ones – who live in the state.

DM: Yeah, for sure. Some of the actors are people that I have relationships with. Tom Skerritt is a very, very well-known veteran actor but happens to live in Washington State. Charisma Carpenter from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on a season arc of Season 1. She’s somebody that I had worked with on other shows before. So, she was great to come in and really tackle a beefy part as Charley’s best friend who’s dying of cancer. That was a really big highlight for Season 1. Then (there was) Christopher Wiehl who is a character actor you’ve seen in a million things, including Bull (which was) I think TNT‘s first dramatic series. He was a lead in that. He’s from Yakima, Washington.

So, there are people who have regional connections or connections to me who had heard about the project that we were doing and went “Hey! I’d love to chew off some scenery and come and take this on with you!” It’s an honor to be able to have that level of talent. It’s an actor-dependent show. I mean, at its heart, it’s people in a room talking about the hardest things and the most beautiful things in life. So, we’re reliant on brilliant talent who are committed. We just got this great group of people that came in and brought these scenes to life. I think that people will find the show really relatable because of that, because of their talent at bringing those kind of moments to life.

JWK: How’d the show land at Great American Pure Flix? Was it taken anywhere else?

DM: I got a call. I’ve got a couple of shows in development with Sony Television. Sony TV owns Sony Affirm Originals. The top executive at Sony Affirm, a guy named Rich Peluso who has produced a bunch of big movies and done a lot of great work at Sony, called and said “Hey, we just bought this streamer Pure Flix and we’re looking for projects. Would you be interested?” They knew my background in TV and thought I’d be good at straddling this interesting space between mainstream and faith and family kind of shows, for lack of a better term. Partly, because my stuff ends up being messier, more challenging and more human I think than some of the faith fare that comes off as having an agenda or a cheesy Sunday school lesson or something. It’s like no, no, this is a show about people and our struggle in this fallen world and what happens when people rely on their faith. It can be helpful but it’s not magic. So, let’s not pretend it is. Let’s do a real show.

That’s something that Rich Peluso has been doing at Sony Affirm Films for a long time. He did Soul Surfer and (other) true stories of people of faith. These are people of faith and let’s tell their stories. So, that’s how it ended up at Pure Flix. They at the time were programming Pure Flix. Pure Flix has now since been sold, at least partially, from Sony to Great American so there’s a new regime there but how we originally ended up at Pure Flix was through the Sony connection.

JWK: What sort of reaction have you been getting to the show – both from people who work in hospice care and from people who have been on the patient end?

DM: The comments have been overwhelmingly positive and quite beautiful. One of my favorite quotes that somebody had was (in response to) somebody online who said “Oh, I don’t know. I might cry.” The person writes “Oh, you’ll cry – but it’s a good cry.” I’m like “They got it!” The show is beautiful. It’s cathartic. I’d say it’s more of a beautiful show than it is a sad show.

JWK: Like you said, particularly in the second season, I think you’ve employed a bit more humor.

DM: Yeah. I think it’s a little funnier in the second season. We get into the characters personal lives a bit more. So, there’s some great humor. The Janey character (played by Cozi Zuehlsdorff) – sort of the bright and bubbly young protégé of Charley – has a love interest. Charley even has a love interest at a certain point. There’s some lighter humor, some human foibles stuff. Each of the characters is a complicated mess in their own right so we get to see that a little bit more. We get out of the hospice house a little bit more. If you haven’t seen Season 1 yet, Season 2 is a great entry point – and you can go back and catch up on Season 1.

We’re really proud of Season 2. The reaction from everybody has been so strong. The hospice nurses love it because we tried really hard to honor them. We really wanted to try to tell their story as best as we can. It’s probably not as rough as it can be but we did to a couple of episodes (that were tough). Terminal agitation, which is a phrase hospice nurses will know, we dramatized that. There are some difficult things that we are willing to dramatize and talk about.

JWK: What is terminal agitation?

DM: My personal experience with it was my grandfather kept getting up out of bed. In the final days or so before he passed, he just kept getting out of bed like he had to go somewhere. He was irritated with the nurses and he was irritated with me that he couldn’t go where he wanted to go. I couldn’t understand where he was going but he just kept getting madder and madder as we kept getting him back into bed – and he kept getting out of bed!

Sometimes you’ll hear stories of the clients knocking water glasses over, screaming at people and even using profanity. They’ve never cussed in like their whole life and they start screaming curse words. It’s weird stuff like this. It’s all part of the brain shutting down and all part of the process. It’s very interesting. We wanted to include that because it’s not a totally placid experience necessarily. Sometimes it is but this is part of it. I think one of the reasons we got some respect from the hospice nurses is we tried to (honestly) tell their story. They play such an important role and have such a gift to offer to the rest of us.

JWK: You have a very eclectic background. I mean this show and your previous hit show Z Nation both, in a way, deal with death but otherwise, on the surface at least, they couldn’t be more different.

DM: I love telling stories about empathy. Even with Z Nation, Karl Schaefer the showrunner and I used to joke that it’s the most violent show about empathy on television. There’s always that purpose to it. There’s always that element of self-sacrifice, of connection, of community, the human uplifting – even in that show. I think that’s why it lasted five seasons on Syfy. It was the connection – the love, compassion and empathy – that the characters had for each other. It’s why people galvanized to that show.

Certainly that’s the case in Going Home. It’s a beautiful show about how we treat each other – and how we treat each other even when circumstances are not ideal. When everything’s going great it’s kind of easy to be nice to everybody but what about when you’re going through your darkest hour? Then what? To see somebody like Charley Copeland, the character played by Cynthia on Going Home, the compassion and the understanding that she demonstrates and gets dramatized in these scenes (is uplifting). It’s people going through their messiest times…On your deathbed it’s like “Okay, this is my final pop quiz. How did I do in my life? Who do I owe an apology to? Who would I love to get an apology from? Who do I need to reconcile with?” These kinds of questions are the things that get dramatized in the show. So, it’s very inspirational, relatable, challenging a little bit even. With the audience, what I’m hearing back from people is “Oh, I don’t have to wait to be on my deathbed to think about how it is I’m living. Where am I with my relationships? And, gosh, can I clean up my side of the street a little bit.” Those are the kinds of thoughts that Going Home provokes. So, it’s very hopeful.

When you’re talking about death you’re really begging the question about “What am I doing with my life until I get there?” That’s an interesting thing that people seem to respond to. People find it really moving. Again, it’s the great thing about a story – TV shows, movies, books, whatever – you can kind of think about “How would I handle that situation?” or “How do I fit into this?” Then it reminds you that “Gosh, I haven’t talked to my sister in three years and I can’t remember what we were fighting about. I guess maybe I should get on this.” You know, things like that.

JWK: What movies have inspired you?

DM: Movies that had beautiful depictions of grace like Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero with Peter Riegert – that a few people may remember. It’s a beautiful little movie. I loved the portrayals of grace in Forrest Gump (directed by) Bob Zemeckis. I found that highly entertaining all the way through. Those are (films) that have stood the test of time for me that I go back to now and again and just really appreciate the subtlety, the richness of the characters and the heart behind them. I think that’s one thing that you’ll find in all the stories that I’ve told – and you’re right that it’s an eclectic resume of a variety of storytelling styles but the commonality I think is grace and heart. Those are the things that the Gospels hit me with. I could connect Forrest Gump to Jesus‘ parables and go “BOOM! Straight line for me!”

JWK: Anything you’d like to say as we wrap up?

DM: I guess all I’d say about Going Home is you might think you know what you’re gonna see but I bet you don’t. I betcha the show is more entertaining, warmer, funnier, more moving, uplifting and hopeful than you would expect a show about a hospice nurse to be.