Portlandia: Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein Talk Bringing the Series to a Close

After airing a previously released sketch about the insufferable issue of addressing sexism in the workplace (which includes ceaseless questions from men asking, "But like... I'm not bad, right?"), the Portlandia panel -- featuring stars Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein and Kyle MacLachlan -- took the stage at the Television Critics Association winter press tour to bid farewell to the show.

After eight hilarious seasons of sketches, journalists were naturally curious why Armisen and Brownstein, the show's co-creators, decided to bring a show that's doing arguably ok-ish to an end.

"We just thought that we would like to have some sense of control over how to conclude the series as opposed to it getting away from us or getting canceled," Armisen told reporters. "We wanted to end the show while we all love doing it and have good feelings about it. It just seemed like the right time. And also, eight seasons is a lot... It was a very organic decision."

It's also arguable, however, that this "organic" decision may have been anything but (considering the final season announcement came after the series was far from its glory years and a nasty controversy regarding the depiction of a real bookstore in Portland), but we can all probably agree that after eight years, everyone involved was likely ready to say goodbye, and the timing just worked out in their favor.

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Carrie Brownstein had some parting words of love for the series, while reflecting on what the great takeaway from the series was from her point of view. "I think something that we become more aware of as it's coming to a close is just the joy of that kind of view of the entire process," Brownstein said. "From the creation of it to the writing of it to getting to film up in Portland with our amazing cast and crew... The whole process was just amazing."

Armisen did tease what to expect from the final season, talking up a few guest stars. And from the sounds of it, a pretty insane musical sketch is on the way.

"For our very last season, we put this band together," Armisen says. "Because of our current administration, punk can come back and be an angry type of music again... So we got Henry Rollins as the lead singer of the band and Krist Novoselic from Nirvana and Brendan Canty from Fugazi."

Portlandia premieres Jan. 18th at 10/9c on IFC.