Reaper Stars Wish Show Could Go to Hell

How dead is Reaper? Although star Bret Harrison tells us a comic book about the canceled CW series is in the works, that's the only way the hellish adventures of Sam and Sock are likely to continue anytime soon. Tyler Labine, who played Sock to Harrison's Sam, says syndication speculation is groundless: "I think it's not officially, officially dead but as far as everyone is concerned, it's over," he says. Of course, the two would happily reunite for a movie. "Yeah, the R-rated version of Reaper," Harrison says. "There's a lot of things you do on set before you shoot the actual taping that would be a lot of fun." To mark the second and final season's recent release on DVD, the pair also talked about why they wish the show had gone to hell.
TVGuide.com: Reaper's season finale left us hanging. Viewers aren't sure where the show would have gone if it were renewed. Any guesses?
Harrison: I feel like we could have had a better finale but we were — to give the writers credit — we didn't necessarily know if we were coming back or not. I think there's some really good things to the finale. I really liked the idea that they were hinting at Andi, Missy Peregrym's character, that she was going to probably be a reaper in the next season. I thought there was some really good stuff. At the same time, we weren't able to necessarily answer a lot of questions that we probably wanted to.
TVGuide.com: What questions did you want answered?
Labine: I always wanted to know, especially by the time we got to the finale, how much Ben and Sock were going to fit into the whole reaping thing, and whether we would ever get to meet the devil, and work with the devil... and also at the end of the finale I really liked the idea that they opened up the whole heaven-and-hell aspect, and that Michael Ian Black was going to basically become Bret's guardian angel. I thought that could have been really cool, if they'd blown that out on a massive scale, made it more of a heaven-versus-hell storyline. But we'll never know.
TVGuide.com: We get asked a lot about Tyler's new show, Sons of Tucson. How's that going?
Labine: Great — the pilot turned out really, really well. Fox is really behind it. They've put us in an amazing timeslot after The Simpsons and before Family Guy, which is great, on their Sunday night Animation Domination bloc. We're clearly not an animated show, but whatever. I will be very, very animated on the show — like watching a Linklater film. We've been picked up for a midseason order, which is great too. ... We've got a really good show on our hands. It's a great character. It's not Sock, which is sad now, because I'm just mourning the death of Sock, but it's great to not be playing the same character.
TVGuide.com: And Bret, what's next for you?
Harrison: I'm doing reshoots on a movie I shot about six months ago called Mardi Gras for Sony Screen Gems and I'm just doing some development stuff, working with a few different writers on some projects. We're going to go into NBC and pitch after the end of the month.
TVGuide.com: This show was a big breakthrough for all the major characters except Ray Wise. How did it change your lives?
Labine: It was not a breakthrough for Ray, but it was a nice resurgence for Ray.
Harrison: Ray got a lot of love for this show. He should have gotten an Emmy. ... I mean, that said, it was great for all our careers. It was really cool for me because I was always kind of looked at as a half-hour guy. I would go into meetings and it was like, "Well, you know. You're a half-hour guy. You're a sitcom guy." ... This was a chance for me to do something different, and still there was a lot of comedy in it.
Labine: For me, I was kind of the king of the dipsh--s for failed hour-long shows. I'd been on a bit of a warpath with hour-long shows. ... You never know what show is going to hit people the right way and what show is the one that's going to open doors for you. But I'd been sort of working away for a long time in hour-long and honestly didn't know — I think a lot of us signed on to do the pilot because the script was good and Kevin Smith was attached. I'll do anything with Kevin. We shot the pilot, and lo and behold it was the one that did end up opening doors. I owe a lot to Reaper for letting me showcase things that a lot of other people wouldn't.