Not Suitable For Work Finale: Mindy Kaling Talks [Spoiler]'s 'Heartbreaking' Ending, Subverting Expectations, And That Juicy Cliffhanger

The following contains spoilers for the last two episodes of "Not Suitable for Work!"

Dating your hot boss might seem like a good idea... until he unceremoniously dumps you on his doorstep for his ex.

In the last two episodes of Hulu's "Not Suitable for Work," Josh overhears Bill mentioning that he's bringing his girlfriend to Aspen over the holidays. Assuming AJ's off to the slopes, Josh brings it up to her, only she quickly puts two and two together: Bill's big plans no longer include her. When she confronts him at his apartment, he finally admits that he's back together with his ex and that he and AJ don't have a future together. (Ouch!)

After telling Josh the truth over some laundry, the two neighbors agree to hang out on New Year's Eve with takeout. However, when Davis learns about Bill's cruelty, it leads to fisticuffs at the office and the guy gets canned. In the season's final moments, AJ kisses Davis for defending her honor... right when Josh arrives to hang out with the Philadelphia Thirst Monster girl of his dreams. 

Mindy Kaling, creator, writer, and executive producer on the series, says she always knew that Josh witnessing that ill-timed kiss would make up the final few frames of the season.

"I really wanted the last image of Season 1 to be him seeing his best friend who he loves kissing the girl of his dreams, which is someone that he has complicated feelings about," Kaling tells TVLine. "So we kind of worked backwards from that moment. When I was hiring staff, I already knew that was going to be the last moment, and that doesn't happen that often." 

Below, Kaling weighs in on some of the finale's biggest moments, including Bill and AJ's demise and whether a Davis and AJ relationship could actually work in a potential Season 2. 

TVLINE | "Not Suitable for Work" is said to be a completion of your coming of age trilogy. But how do these specific characters mirror or symbolize your own early days in New York City? 
MINDY KALING | Gosh, so much. I think of that period of my life as such an extreme of emotions. It was just extreme excitement about work and what would happen in the future. There was just so much uncertainty, and also huge crushes on people that were out of reach and just generally like a lack of access. I've said this before, but I remember so vividly, and this is what really made me want to do the show was this idea of like — and I don't know, as an ambitious person, if you can relate to this — but this feeling of wanting to hurry up to the part of my life where people took me seriously, and I had clout, and I was on the right path. That's really why I wanted to write the show.

TVLINE | So Bill and AJ are through. When you were writing and planning the season, was their relationship always meant to crash and burn?
Yeah, I think so. I think that these are two people that are too similar, people who are ambitious and ambitious about the same things. There is this attraction that draws them together, but ultimately, just because two people are similar doesn't mean that they're compatible. I have found that in my life, and I think that is true of them. I think that Ella Hunt, in particular, in that second to last episode is... it's so heartbreaking. It really was exciting for me because this is obviously a comedy show, but what I learned in "The Office" is the moments of poignancy and heartbreak in a comedy show? Those are some of my favorite moments from my career.

TVLINE | For someone who's so serious about her work ethic, why was AJ so drawn to Bill in the first place?
I feel like workplaces are fascinating because they're places where there's ambition, friendship, attraction, competition, and it all exist at the same time. I think that's why so many shows are set in the workplace, and particularly in America where a fixation on work and an addiction to work is so prevalent. By the way, I'm completely guilty of this, so I wanted to just explore that reality and examine it, and I think that I really relate to it. I have had some of my greatest romantic relationships in professional settings. Even if the stakes couldn't be higher for me professionally, that's still where it happened. Most of the people I know who got married are people who met at work, so I really think that that's an attention-filled environment, both for professional situations and then sexual attention.

TVLINE | The finale ends with a surprising kiss between AJ and Davis. I'm going to say "when" and not "if," so when the show comes back, where do you see this AJ and Davis connection heading? Can a relationship between them actually work?
It's a great question. Thank you for saying that you think it's inevitable that the show will come back. I really hope so. It's such an incredible cast. The actors, I think, are what makes the show so special in my opinion. When we started working on it, we had no idea what it would be. When I was still working on the pilot for the show two years ago, the image of Josh walking down the hallway — and before I even knew what was going to happen the first season — I knew that he would have this adversarial relationship with AJ, but he would be meeting her to hang out with her on New Year's Eve, and he'd be feeling really excited about that, and he was like, 'Why do I feel so excited? Is this person a friend? Do I like them more than a friend?' But I really wanted the last image of Season 1 to be him seeing his best friend who he loves kissing the girl of his dreams, which is someone that he has complicated feelings about. So we kind of worked backwards from that moment. When I was hiring staff, I already knew that was going to be the last moment, and that doesn't happen that often.

But in terms of throwing forward, it was really wide open. I love secrets and the lies in the show, so deciding whether or not Josh was going to tell Davis and AJ that he saw the kiss, whether Josh was even gonna show up at all anymore for that night, those were all the things we knew we had to pay off. But it was really fun figuring out where we were gonna go, and I had no idea.

TVLINE | That perfectly tees up this next question. When you're in the earliest stages of development, and you have these five sexy singles and a hot boss down on paper, do you already know which characters are going to couple up, and what's going to be just a flirtmance vs. a real thing? I had a lot of fun trying to figure out which of these pairings were going to pop.
Thank you! I feel like I'm from this old guard that has worked on shows for eight years, six years, I've been on all these network TV shows that have lasted for a long time, and the only way to work on those kinds of shows is to be really flexible. If they last a long time, multiple different pairings can exist over many years as the characters grow up. And so for me, I really wanted to be open. I have some general ideas about where I'd like it to end, but I also don't want to do the same thing that I've done in other shows. Obviously, I've done in other shows characters that are enemies to lovers and they end up being together, but I'd like to, in some ways, subvert what would be expected. I love that when people turn on a show, even if they don't know who made it, if they watch a couple scenes, they might be like, "This feels like a Mindy Kaling show." I really do like that. It makes me feel like I've worked really hard to have a voice, but what I don't want to have is repetition of storylines or expected outcomes. I want the show to last for eight years and take all of the cast into their mid-30s, and so I'd like to subvert expectations.

TVLINE | Are there any new characters or guest stars you're hoping to have on board come Season 2?
Honestly, there's so many characters currently in the show. It's so densely packed, because there's not only the younger cast, there's Constance Wu, Victor Garber, Jay Ellis, Judy Gold, and all the grown-ups in the show, but I don't think I would ever be able to do a second season without introducing one or two really splashy characters. I think there's some people from my previous lives and other shows that I think I would love to have do a little crossover in this — not the actual characters, but the actors.

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