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Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later

The Camp Firewood saga continues in Netflix’s new original series Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. The 8-episode series follows up on a promise made at the end of the very first Wet Hot movie, all the way back in 2001. In that scene, Ben (Bradley Cooper) floats the idea of a camp reunion with all of his fellow counselors. They all agree to make it their beeswax to meet up at Firewood ten years later, and hopefully you’ve made it your beeswax to binge-watch the new series.
But is this the end of the road for Coop and Andy and Susie and Katie and Lindsay and J.J. and Gail and Gene and Nancy and Vic and Neil and Abby and dear-lord-that’s-a-lot-of-counselors? Will there be more sincere, goofy, and sincerely goofy drama from this group of close-knit friends and the presidents that toy with their lives? Will we get to see a fourth day jam-packed with camp calamities? Will there be a season three?
First things first: technically, First Day of Camp and Ten Years Later are two mini-series, not two seasons of a Wet Hot TV show. It’s a nit-picky difference, but that’s why both of these series pop up as their own entries on Netflix instead of being lumped together. So the real question is, will we get a third Wet Hot mini-series?

Did Ten Years Later end on a cliffhanger?

Yes and no. On the one hand, Ten Years Later has a sense of finality to it since it loops back to the final flashforward scene from the 2001 film. We’ve now seen the gang on their first day of camp, their last day of camp, and at the 10-year reunion they talked about on the last day of camp. We’ve seen it all! Or have we?

In true Wet Hot style, Ten Years Later has a coda that could be interpreted many ways. Coop finally sells his memoir to his book editor (and best friend), who asks him if all the crazy stuff in the memoir really happened. “What if I told you I just went to my camp reunion and saw some old friends and had a few laughs and that was it?” asks Coop. “Would that be more believable?” Believable, but not as compelling, Coop says. The editor then asks Coop where McKinley had to be at 11 AM on the day of their reunion, and he says “that’s an interesting story.” Then, the show fast-forwards a year later and we get a quick scene of Beth (Janeane Garofalo) and Mitch (H. Jon Benjamin) enjoying a sunset on the beach. Mitch, who is not a can of vegetables (!), eats from a can of vegetables while Beth reads Coop’s published book, Wet Hot American Summer.

So… has Wet Hot just been a wild memoir written by Coop all along? Did Wet Hot just pull a Newhart on all of us?? That’s left up to you to decide, viewer.
This ending isn’t necessarily a cliffhanger, but it does ask questions–just like the previous Wet Hot entries. The film ended with the reunion scene, and First Day of Camp ended with the reveal that the very dead Eric (Chris Pine) was in fact very not dead. Both of those brief scenes could have been fine endings to the franchise, but each thread was picked up in Ten Years Later. So while 10YL doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, it raises the same kind of questions we’ve seen raised before. One could totally see a new WHAS mini-series either focusing on McKinley’s 11 AM meeting or one focusing on the fallout from Coop’s (exaggerated???) memoir.

What have the showrunners said about a sequel to this sequel series?

They haven’t said much. The guys to look to are co-creators Michael Showalter and David Wain, and so far it seems up in the air. Showalter said “maybe, never know, I don’t know” when asked about a third mini-series in an interview with /Film. Compared to Showalter, David Wain gave slightly more information when he told EW that Bradley Cooper is open to coming back for more Wet Hot after having to sit Ten Years Later out. It seems like Wet Hot American Summer just happens when it happens, man, and that might be why the endings to all of the series are kinda open to interpretation.

So what’s our best guess?

First Day of Camp hit Netflix on July 31, 2015. Ten Years Later arrived on August 4, 2017. If that pattern holds, then maybe August 2, 2019? But again, that’s if there are more hijinks to be had. It’s really hard to get the Wet Hot cast together, especially since Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pine, Bradley Cooper, and Paul Rudd are in-demand movie stars. And the rest of the cast (Amy Poehler, John Early, Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Showalter, Janeane Garofalo, Ken Marino, H. Jon Benjamin, the list goes on and on) all have a ton of other projects going on. Just listen to David Wain explain how they shoot the show, sometimes without the actors present!

Wet Hot’s not an easy show to put together, but the show is the cast. These are performers worth waiting for, even if that wait lasts a few years. And if Ten Years Later is the final chapter in this truly American tale, then it’s closed on a scene that’ll keep Firewood fans talking for years to come.