Emotional Connections: A Conversation with Co-Creator and Showrunner Eric Ledgin on Season Two of ‘St. Denis Medical’

It’s time for your second dose of feel-good comedy with season two of St. Denis Medical. The season finale aired April 6, leaving plenty of room for another season of peeling back the varied (and often comical) layers of these beloved characters. While season one perfectly set up the world through the comedy mockumentary workspace, and a glimpse into these characters – their foils and wins – season two dug deeper, and honestly, unexpectedly pulls at the heartstrings.

And that’s definitely a win for co-creator and showrunner Eric Ledgin, who returns to chat with Script about the latest season, where he and the writers focused on character dynamics and relationships, the mentor-mentee relationship between Bruce and Matt, Joyce’s mission-driven journey, to the surface level curmudgeon Ron and his and the community’s reaction to his mortality.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Another great season in the books. This season really leaned into expanding these beloved characters and diving deeper into their background and their relationships to each other. There’s the humbling of Bruce throughout the season, and the Sam and Diane love story between Serena and Matt, which is so lovely, Alex going through an array of emotions about being able to let go, and the list goes on. But first, I do want to start with the mentor mentee relationship between Bruce and Matt, and how you guys found your way into that to guide their journeys, especially for the season.

Eric Ledgin: You're definitely nailing the find our way into it part. I tend to not go into most of these relationship dynamics with any rigid thoughts on how I want it to go from the beginning. Sometimes you build towards something where you're like, 'oh, I can really see this one destination in the future and let's justify that, because it's worth it.'

But more often, you find it and you put Bruce and Matt in a story together, and you go, this is really funny. It's like two characters who are in some ways delusionally optimistic, but for one of them, he really feels that optimism, and the other one, it's more an insecurity masked as optimism, [laughs] and there's something about that dynamic, especially when the latter is the higher stakes character in the workplace, there's something about the two of them that just works.

And it's also their chemistry. They're very fun together. And it just made the writers, I think, want to explore their relationship further, and just there was something that felt so right about Matt so hungry for more of the affirmation of Bruce's friendship, and that the relationship was real, and Bruce hungering just as much for a deep friendship, but totally taking for granted the one that was right in front of him. [laughs] It continues to delight me when they get together. And until that gets old, I think we'll keep beating that drum. [laughs]

Sadie: There’s so many directions you could have gone with these characters and making them, like making them antagonistic to each other. But I really appreciate that they’re just good people who happen to find themselves in these oddball situations. And they’re never punching down each other, other than Ron, but he's trying to teach people lessons in his own way.

Eric: I think it's all done like at its core with love, or, if not from love, then from some other relatable human feeling. Obviously, in any workplace, including a hospital, there are going to be people who aren't so great and ultimately as loving, but I don't think, maybe a reality show, but not so much a docu series would have focused on those people. They would have probably found the people that were sort of the richest and in their ability to love and express themselves and participate in acts of kindness and compassion.

But with that said, I think that that's like something that is related to just my sort of worldview is I do think that that is most people, when you get down to it, if they're not acting out of love,  there's something deeper there that can be uncovered, and I'm hoping that these characters reflect that.

Sadie: Joyce is always a whirlwind, never quite sure what’s going to happen. In this season, she's been very mission driven, but her character arc this season just lands so well – especially that moment where it her that she realizes what’s most important – the people in the hospital.

Eric: I think that for anyone, and I feel this way sometimes about myself, and just making a show is like for any job or career or project - where you start out for good reasons that feel deep to you at the time, and then you get into the nuts and bolts of it, and some element of greed or status or just sense of accomplishment or duty gets in the way of the original feeling you had.

And I do think that there are times that something reminds you, 'Wait a sec, all that aside, there's a real human reason you started this.' And I think that Joyce has that in her and she just needs to be reminded sometimes.

Sadie: Another great character that’s been pushed to the front – Keith. I’ve really enjoyed you the writers have utilized him as a comedic tool. What is that approach in terms of leaning into him more, and knowing when to hold back or push him out a little bit more in these awkward moments?

Eric: He's one of those people that's I think can be a fan favorite, even a writer favorite at times. And when you have a character that's that specific and fun, there tends to be sometimes over pitching of like, 'oh, and then Keith is there and says this funny thing,' and you don't want it to become a crutch.

And I think sometimes my job is to be a little - and it’s not just with Keith - but it's to be like the police of ‘let's not use this thing too much. Let's not lean on it.’ Let's do it because we feel it's either necessary or additive or really giving us something we want here, as opposed to just we know it's a safe bet sort of thing to have this punching bag character. [laughs] But it is fun. He's wonderful, and he always delivers. I will give him that.

Sadie: Well, now you've got to live with these characters and this world in this hospital for two seasons. Has there been any happy creative surprises for you and the writers collectively or that relief that your intention got across?

Eric: Yeah, there's so many things... we've now done a few dozen episodes of the show, and as you do that… every episode, you're adding either a new character or a new revelation about a character's past or their relationship with someone else in the main cast, or their relationships outside, and it all builds and builds, and you have so much to pull from.

And on one hand, it just makes me want more. I want to see the rest of Ron's family... there's other people I want to meet or learn about. But it also it makes the show exponentially easier to tell satisfying stories, because we have so many more options to dig from.

I think, like getting to Ron, what happens in the last couple of episodes with him, that in itself was a revelation, because you get to see how characters react to something like that happening to one of their own, how Ron reacts to this threat to his mortality. And even before that, learning about people's family members, learning about seeing how Matt and Serena handle their stuff together, how they handle it as individuals, how they handle it as a pair, all that stuff, just informs and informs and it makes writing more fun and more rewarding, I think.

Sadie: There's just more to play with in that sandbox, an endless layer to these characters.

Eric: Yeah, you look at Joyce... at the beginning of the show, she's just this hospital administrator who is getting over her skis a little bit on what she wants for the hospital. But now we know her to have this very complicated personal life that includes a lot of sacrifice and a lot of weirdness in her background and family, [laughs] and just a lot of hits that we've watched her take that are tough and that changes things. It changes the way you view and use the character.

Season 2 of St. Denis Medical is now streaming on Peacock.