‘Breeders’ Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard Reflect On The Final Season Of TV’s Most Underrated Show: “All the Pressure Goes Away”

Looking back over the last three years, Martin Freeman has found a surprising amount of resonance with the character he portrays in his FX television show Breeders.

“It probably reflects something in my own life,” Freeman told Decider in a Zoom interview held prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, discussing his character putting aside the anger that has defined him since Season 1. “I’m calmer now. As I’ve gotten older, as I’ve gotten more used to being a parent, I’ve gotten a bit better at it.”

Created in collaboration with Simon Blackwell and Chris Addison, known for their work on Veep, the dark comedy follows a couple, Paul and Ally Worsley, as they struggle through parenthood and their professional lives — and eventually find both threatening their romantic relationship. Extremely personal, the show often feels like a hard look in the mirror, or an uncensored portrayal of the good and the bad of day-to-day life.

Breeders has aired for three seasons, each containing 10 30-minute episodes, and is ready to premiere its fourth and final season on FX, with next-day streaming on Hulu. 

Freeman has seen his character Paul through the thick of it. In the first season, he grappled with major anger issues, which caused him to snap at his young children. The next season posed new challenges as he dedicated himself to resolving the issue, but ended up bottling up the rage, rather than managing it in a healthy manner. Eventually, his explosive behavior led him to an altercation with his teenage son Luke, which ended with him getting punched in the face. 

Season 3 started with Paul living in a separate house than his family and dedicating himself to becoming a better role model for his son. While the separation helped him repair the father-son relationship, it caused a wedge between him and his wife. This leads us to Season 4, which opens with the beloved married couple seeking a divorce, but ultimately, deciding to “stay together” until their children are out of the house. 

“Paul has got a bit more level-headed,” Freeman teased of what to expect in Season 4. “Frankly, we couldn’t just have 40 episodes of Paul balling his kids out. It’s a little bit tired. They’ve all sort of grown together as a family, as families do, because everybody shifts and everybody changes. It’s not only kids who are growing up and learning about stuff, it’s older human beings too, and hopefully we’ll do so till we drop dead.”

For Haggard, who was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award in 2021 for the series, when she looks back at playing Ally over the years, she appreciates her character’s substance. A full-force career woman, Ally has struggled with balancing a high-demanding job at a sound studio firm and keeping her family together, as well as going through menopause and facing fertility issues. In the latest season, she is not thrilled to be approaching her golden birthday.

“It’s lovely playing a character that’s been on such a journey. There’s always been something really juicy to get my teeth into each season,” said Haggard on the same Zoom call. “This year, she’s in denial about turning 50 and she also finds out she’s going to be a grandma. She’s really thrown by that and she doesn’t really handle the news well.”

And in the truest Breeders fashion, Haggard finds that “just when you think, ‘oh everything’s gonna be nice and normal,'” the show tosses in a new obstacle.

Over the first four episodes, provided for viewing to journalists, the series pivots back to what enraptured viewers in the first place: the love story between the two parents. As we wrote in our review of the new season, the show has always shone the brightest when focusing on the ever-changing relationship between Ally and Paul, both of whom have dabbled in infidelity over the seasons and have their own flaws; but always manage to work through them together. The new season sees the couple meeting up for secret rendezvous to discuss their separation without involving their children, and over these conversations, they find themselves becoming great friends again.

“By admitting defeat on their relationship, all the pressure goes away, and they are able to start talking to each other again,” Haggard said. “And by admitting it’s not going to work, they start to slowly just reconnect because they’re no longer staring at their relationship trying to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. They’re just able to function and chat and slowly start to find each other again.”

Freeman added, “Yeah, because they do enjoy each other’s company a lot.”

In addition to the rekindled relationship, the couple is brought together by two big household changes. The first sees Luke, who is now a senior in high school, planning for fatherhood after having knocked up his girlfriend. The second follows the youngest Worsley, Ava, in the middle of a gay crisis. 

In order to follow the characters through these major milestones, Breeders has employed two major time jumps. One saw the children going from childhood to preteens; another bumps them to their core teenage years.

According to Freeman, that was part of the plan all along.

“Very early on, we knew we would have them from infants to young adults. That was always the plan. So you see not only parenting but the whole of family life, even grand-parenting,” Freeman shared. “We wanted to see this holistic thing play over some time. It’s a bit more interesting and it gives us and the audience new terrain to play.”

All good things must come to an end, and for Breeders, Luke aging into adulthood was a perfect place to wrap the series. But don’t worry, there’s plenty on the horizon for both leads. In particular, Freeman has already found himself inspired to make a new project, which Haggard joked could be “The Daisy Haggard Show.”

Earnestly, Freeman told us that he’s “absolutely” talking about a new series, but couldn’t give further details as it is in its early stages. “I’m under no illusion that I’m an amazing… you know, I’m not Arthur Miller. I’m not going to be a great, great writer,” he said, though he did praise his ability to come up with stories and build on them, as he has done with Breeders since its conception. “What I do trust is my taste. I trust my taste in helping to put something together. That’s something I would like to do again and develop.”

Freeman added, “I always describe it as having a vote rather than just an opinion. You can be an actor with an opinion and they can choose to listen to you or not, whereas if you are actually around the top table, you have a vote.”

If there’s one thing we learned from Breeders, it’s that Freeman is a boss at making the calls, and him and Haggard are a match made in heaven. Bring on The Daisy Haggard Show.

Breeders is currently airing on Mondays at 10/9c on FX, and streams next-day on Hulu.

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Breeders wouldn’t exist.