We Can’t Tell You What Forever‘s About. Read This Piece and You Might Figure It Out Anyway.

Romantic comedy obsessive Mindy Kaling famously used her TV series The Mindy Project to explore the notion of what happens after a couple finds its “happily ever after”—the mundane routine of chores, bills, and kids that settles into place after the passionate embraces and bodice-ripping sex die down.

Forever, the new Amazon Prime dramedy from Master of None’s Alan Yang and 30 Rock’s Matt Hubbard, sees Kaling’s concept of commitment and doubles down on it. And while I’m not at liberty to say exactly how the series does this—Amazon’s stringent demand that major spoilers not be revealed until a week after the premiere is both frustrating to critics and journalists attempting to cover the show and a potential disservice to its cast and crew—I do trust that you, Paste’s readers, are the intelligent sort who can look at the name of the show, re-read my introductory paragraphs, and figure the twist out for yourselves.

The elevator pitch is simple: Saturday Night Live alums Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph star as Oscar and June, who, after a cleverly sped-up montage of their meet-cute, courtship and wedded bliss, find themselves in a bit of a rut. June, the more astute of the two, suggests they liven things up by forgoing the usual trip to their lake house for a ski vacation. That’s when things get interesting.

“I think it’s about the idea of forever and ever,” Armisen tells Paste. “Not just because of the title, but because of, when there are vows, there has to be time to direct to them. The idea of, how long does that go on for? How long do you want it to go on for? Is there value in the day-to-day? Is there value when things get mundane? These are all questions that we don’t have an answer for, but it’s worth exploring.”

The actors both have executive producer titles on the series, and say that they knew pretty early on in the development how the story would play out. Rudolph says she “wasn’t necessarily looking for [a project like this], but it does feel my speed at the moment.” She likes that Forever gives her a chance to be “honest and also look at the reality of things being sometimes sad—and funny in their sadness. I like that. I like that mix.”

Rudolph also knows that Forever might be seen as a companion to Phantom Thread, the film focused on relationship power dynamics that her partner, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, released last year. But while Anderson’s drama may give cinephiles everywhere permanent side-eye any time their significant others make them an omelet, Forever finds humor in the grating. In one scene, which Hubbard admits is “literally verbatim a fight” he’s had with his own wife, Oscar nags June about the proper way to load utensils in the dishwasher. (For the uncivilized: Real Simple magazine says forks go tines up). It’s petty and kneading, even if his efforts are genuine. Everyone who sees the scene, be it the crewmembers who were on set during filming or the journalists who watched the screeners, is seemingly incapable of not taking a side. Rudolph says these visceral, ardent responses “encapsulate how many of us in a long-term relationship can relate to these moments.”

But Forever is also a conversation about complacency, even as the couple (and their relationship) take an unexpected (and somewhat unexplained) turn. Armisen points out that Oscar thinks these changes are awesome, but others may want to “think what version of it is a prize and what version is a punishment.”