Bethlehem man knows how ‘Game of Thrones’ ends
Freedom grad Casey Bloys, HBO’s president of programming, tight-lipped as suspense builds
Casey Bloys is in an elite club: The Bethlehem native knows how HBO’s much-loved and critically acclaimed TV series “Game of Thrones” ends.
And he’s known it for a year and half.
“Fans are going to love it,” says Bloys, president of HBO Programming, of the show’s finale. “It feels very satisfying emotionally and from a story point of view.”
Bloys, a Freedom High School graduate, has built a career around shepherding critically acclaimed TV shows such as “Game of Thrones,” “Veep” and “True Detective” through a tumultuous, evolving era in television.
He recently talked to The Morning Call about his career, the end of “Game of Thrones” and what could be ahead for fans of the show and HBO.
Christmas City start
Television has always been a big part of Bloys’ life, going back to his childhood in Bethlehem. He admits to spending a lot of his free time watching TV.
“I didn’t know a lot about the business of TV, but it was always something I was drawn to,” he said.
He graduated from Freedom High in 1989 and headed to Northwestern University in Illinois. But his plan for
college didn’t include a degree related to television. Instead, he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, which he said taught him to think logically and helped instill a work ethic he would find useful later in life.
After college, he had his mind set on moving to New York.
Bloys got a job at an ad agency and after a few years, made a connection with one of the agency’s clients, Paramount Pictures.
In 1996, he got a job at Paramount and he made the move to Los Angeles.
“My goal was to get to L.A., and I got myself out there,” Bloys said.
Like a lot of people who move to Los Angeles for a job in Hollywood, Bloys cut his teeth as an assistant, listening and learning on the job. He worked for a while as an assistant at CBS and he learned behind the scenes of awardwinning shows such as “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “King of Queens.”
And after a four-year stint as director of development for Wass-Stein Productions, he moved on to HBO.
Climbing to the top at HBO
In 2004 — the year Bloys came on board — HBO enjoyed a host of hit shows earning critical acclaim, including “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under” and “Sex in the City.” His first job at HBO was as director of development for HBO Independent Productions.
His career accelerated, as he climbed the ranks rapidly.
In 2013, Bloys moved up to executive vice president of HBO Programming, and was responsible for comedy series, late night and specials.
Bloys helped guide the development of a long list of comedies, including “Veep,” a political satire starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The Emmy-Award winning series ends this year with its seventh and final season.
Bloys also worked on “Ballers,” the comedy starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Spencer Strasmore, a retired NFL player who must navigate his new career as the financial manager of other NFL players. The show debuted in 2015.
Johnson, of course, is also a Freedom High graduate, class of ‘90.
“He is an absolute pleasure to work with,” Bloys said of Johnson. “He’s a down-to-earth actor and producer, and he couldn’t be nicer.”
Funny enough, Johnson isn’t the only famous Freedom grad with whom he’s crossed paths. Bloys met with Daniel Dae Kim, an ‘86 graduate of Freedom, a few years back to discuss some projects.
In February 2016, Bloys was named president of HBO series, late night and specials — in that role, he was responsible for the development and production of all series, talk shows and specials for the network. Just a few months later, he was named to the position he holds today, president of HBO Programming, in which he is responsible for shaping the entire network’s programming, including its biggest hits such as “True Detective,” “Westworld” and, of course, “Game of Thrones.”
The “Game of Thrones” phenomenon
“Game of Thrones,” a fantasy series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, is an adaptation of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” George R. R. Martin’s series of novels — the first of which is “A Game of Thrones.” After its debut, the show quickly became HBO’s most-watched, an accomplishment when you consider the network’s long history of hit shows.
The industry has annually heaped awards on the show. “Game of Thrones” has won the second-highest number of Emmy Awards in history, with 38 wins and 128 nominations. (First is “Saturday Night Live,” with 54 wins and 242 nominations.)
“Game of Thrones” was a huge leap forward for HBO, said Tom Nunan, a lecturer at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in Los Angeles.
“No one had ever done science-fiction and fantasy on that scale,” Nunan said. “‘Game of Thrones’ is that once-in-alifetime show where everything works beautifully together. It’s a fantasy show that somehow feels like history. It has this wild combination of genres that’s never been seen before in film or TV.”
The show’s eighth and final season will premiere at 9 p.m. April 14, and run only six episodes, the shortest season in the show’s history.
Will a season so short allow enough time to tie up all the loose ends in what is a complex, woven story structure?
Fans of the show — an ardent, intensely passionate group of followers — were happy to learn that more than half of the season’s episodes would have longer running times. The season’s third episode, in fact, will run 82 minutes — the longest of any episode in the show’s series.
To be able to ensure that fans aren’t left hanging, there is a lot of pressure on the show’s writers and executives, like Bloys.
“You always want to stick your landing,” Nunan said. “Part of that gold medal is having a great ending.”
Take “The Sopranos” series finale, for example. The puzzling, open ending left fans to wonder what really happened, and it’s still one of the most talked about finales in history (and not in a good way).
“The end to ‘The Sopranos’ is a cautionary tale,” Nunan said. “For a lot of shows that followed it, like ‘Mad Men,’ they worked to make its coming to an end more fruitful.”
Robert Thompson, author and Syracuse University professor of popular culture, said he doesn’t envy anyone who had the job of writing that final episode of “Game of Thrones.”
“People are so invested in it,” Thompson said of the show. “If they pull a ‘Lost’ on this one, we could have people running through the streets.” (Thompson is referring to the hit ABC show, “Lost,” which also ended with what critics and fans felt was a flat finale.)
Thompson points out that it’s even more than just ensuring that a finale suits current fans. A bad ending could wind up spoiling the history of a series.
“All these shows will continue to live on in streaming,” Thompson said. “So not only do you not want to upset the fan base, but you want to keep the equity of the show for the future.”
Bloys was tight-lipped about the “Game of Thrones” finale, which is set to air on May 19. There’s a tremendous amount of pressure to end the muchloved series in a way that answers all the questions.
But six episodes? Will that be enough time to answer all the nagging questions?
“Dan and David (the show’s writers) are very, very smart and thoughtful,” Bloys said. “No way they would do this if it felt rushed. We took their lead on it and I don’t have any doubt about it. It is an appropriate and satisfying end.”
For Nunan, “Game of Thrones” has already delivered throughout its run.
“It’s already in the victory lane,” Nunan said. “We’ll be sorry to see it go, but so much of it has worked so well already. I’m at ease personally about the finale.”
Looking ahead
Bloys is well aware of how TV is changing and facing stiff competition from Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu — but he’s staying focused on what HBO is doing.
“A good operating precedent is to keep your eyes on your own paper and focus on the shows you’re doing,” Bloys says.
Bloys points out that HBO’s business is subscribers, not advertisers. So it’s even more important to offer programming that appeals to many.
“Someone has to feel that HBO is worth having,” Bloys said. “You need a show that speaks to them. It can be a big show that’s cinematic or a smaller show like ‘My Brilliant Friend.’”
It’s not just the competition Bloys is facing. He also has to navigate through changes as the result of AT&T’s acquisition of HBO parent Time Warner.
Through its history, HBO has had a fairly modest output of shows, focusing on Sunday nights for its original programming, Thompson said. Netflix, on the other hand, pumps out shows. Bloys and others at HBO have to strike a balance between keeping the quality of HBO’s shows, while offering enough to keep subscribers’ interests, Thompson said.
Also facing Bloys is, of course, the departure of “Game of Thrones,” which leaves a giant hole in HBO’s lineup of hits.
But there’s much more on the horizon, Bloys said.
Bloys was recently in London for a table reading of a script for the pilot of the “Game of Thrones” prequel. So far, the cast includes Miranda Richardson (best known for her roles in the “Harry Potter” franchise) and Naomi Watts (“King Kong” and “Mulholland Drive.”)
“We’ll be shooting the pilot this summer,” Bloys said. “The script is great.”
(Sorry, no other details, G.O.T. fans.) Another highly anticipated HBO project Bloys is guiding is “The Nevers” by Joss Whedon, the prolific writer and director of TV shows such as “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and movies such as Marvel’s “The Avengers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
“The Nevers” marks Whedon’s return to TV and is described as a sci-fi epic about a group of Victorian women with unusual abilities, relentless enemies and a mission that might change the world. No air date is set yet.
Also on the horizon is “The Watchmen,” which is shooting in Atlanta now. The series by Damon Lindelof (“The Leftovers,” “Lost”) creates a modern-day re-imagining of Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel about masked vigilantes.
“Big Little Lies,” based on Liane Moriarty’s bestselling book, and featuring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley, will return this June with Meryl Streep. The show is a dark comedy about three mothers whose seemingly perfect lives unravel to the point of murder.
‘A real gentleman’
It would be easy for Bloys to become “all Hollywood” as a top executive, but he remains down to earth.
“There’s a lot of warmth for Casey in the community,” Nunan said. “He’s a class act and a nice guy. Casey is a real gentleman. It’s unusual for someone to have the track record he has and to remain down to earth.”
Bloys — whose family includes his husband, Alonzo Wickers and their 12-year-old twins, a boy and a girl — does come back to the Valley to visit his parents a few times a year.
Growing up in the Valley in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bethlehem Steel was a big shadow over everything, Bloys said. And from its steady demise, he learned lessons he used later in life.
“There was this sense of infallibility, and it slowly happened,” Bloys said of the demise of his hometown steel company. “There’s no sure thing and no lock on how to do business. You have to be constantly aware of things changing.”
Jen Sheehan can be reached at 610-8206628 or jsheehan@mcall.com.