Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1124104
E H come together in this old hotel full of secrets. I was inspired by a Dewey decimal card catalog, old European seaside resorts, Atlantic City, The Shining, the Bradbury building and the rugged coastline that might exist in a remote part of New England. It called for a mysterious beauty, a profound gravitas, yet it asked more questions than it offered answers. The Hotel Denouement included a working elevator topped by a huge clock, fronted by a massive lobby/atrium built large enough to accommodate an ad hoc courtroom. Within the hotel, there were multiple suites and rooms, halls, a basement, a laundry room, an Indian restaurant and kitchen, secret elevators, passages to a huge, covert library hiding under an outdoor fountain area, a rooftop pool and a steam room. All were framed by a hotel entrance, cobblestone drive and reflecting pond. The opera— inspired by the Paris Opera House—with an alley attached to its exterior, held a very critical piece of backstory. All sets were built on stage with a few visual effects tricks, then torn down roughly five weeks later after shooting was completed. I'm sure I'm forgetting several details, but this recollection is triggering P.T.S.D. so I will stop. This block was the mother of all monsters for the set decorating department, led by Kate Marshall, whose work, even under extreme pressure, was drop-dead gorgeous. This fact was proven by the ravenous looting of the sets' contents by unnamed bodies. The finale The End was set primarily on a tropical island inhabited by a cult of shipwrecked colonists, all unknowingly intoxicated with coconut cordial to maintain civil order—"Margaritaville" meets Jonestown. The biggest design challenge was to somehow marry this radical aesthetic pivot to the world of the previous twenty-four episodes. This was helped by a herd of coral-colored feral F G I