Interview: Editor Liyana Mansor Discusses Episodes Two and Five of ‘Knuckles’

Warning: The following article and audio interview contain spoilers for Knuckles.

Knuckles is one of the best television series of the year and continues the incredible love letter to the Sonic the Hedgehog games director Jeff Fowler introduced in his 2020 feature and its sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. What’s particularly exciting about Knuckles is how the show deftly blends genres and tones across its six episodes, with the first episode being more of a bridge between the film and the series until it goes completely off the rails from there.

Editor Liyana Mansor worked on episodes two and five of Knuckles, which could not be more different in tone and style. In approaching both episodes, the editor tells Awards Radar on Zoom, “A lot was going on across the series. I think one of the main challenges was probably finding that balance between action and comedy while still having those heartfelt moments because the films also had that. In a way, each episode leant stronger into certain traits of one or two genres than the others did. When I first saw episode one, it felt like a bridge straight out of the movies. It’s funny, wholesome, and has the themes of family, friendship, etc. 

When I looked at episode two, it was not like episode one. It’s more baddie-centric and set up more like a mystery thriller in the opening, and you’ve got Knuckles [Idris Elba] trapped in a cage for most of it. But as that episode progressed, and we escaped from the G.U.N. agents, it felt like we had the room to accommodate those similar themes. They’re sitting in a diner, and Knuckles can be a little bit more vulnerable and open up about his family and not having a home. I think if we had tried to amalgamate too many genres in the first half, it wouldn’t have worked. It would have been a little bit jarring. So we had to wait and give him the space to grow on the road trip, because the first time we see them in the car, he’s not so on board [with the friendship] and it’s just about the mission. He doesn’t want Wade [Adam Pally] to make jokes about him. But in episode two, the car scene sees them bonding and rocking out together. They’ve grown together a bit, and it feels like a buddy relationship.”

Mansor also didn’t know just how different episodes two and five were going to be, but this added to the show’s overall unpredictable, if not also experimental nature, as each director would bring their own spin and stylistic flourishes to the material:

“When I watched episodes three and four, I understood how they were really experimenting in the series. Each episode is quite different, and to some extent, that makes it slightly unpredictable. But at the same time, it had a lot of common themes, such as family, home, and friendship. It’s outrageous in places and heartwarming in others, and I think that’s part of the adventure and the fun of watching this buddy story of Knuckles and Wade being wildcards in their own way and navigating the world.

Episode two has a much darker edge than episode one, and our characters are in this isolated location. We’ve got this cool opening, which was inspired by the opening sequence of The Shining, with the shots of the mountains, and we got to spend a little bit more time with the G.U.N. agents. There’s a sense of jeopardy because Knuckles is captured, and there’s an urgency for Wade to muster up the warrior in himself and save Knuckles. So, I found it was a much faster-moving episode.

Originally, some scenes were much longer in the initial assembly. Much of that was the time we had lent to ad-lib and improv gags that we found funny. But it starts feeling more like a sketch show if he starts hanging around these jokes for too long. So, we had to start killing our darlings to keep the story moving and quicken the pace. Once Knuckles and Wade escape, I feel like that’s when we earn our breath to sit at the diner and have those more heartfelt moments, whereas five was very different in that we only had three or four main locations. A lot of it is set in the hotel and casino bowling stadium, so there’s less movement already by comparison.

Five was probably one of the more sentimental and emotional episodes, so it was really important for us to give our characters the space and the time for those moments between Wade and his dad reconnecting and Wade and his mom [Stockard Channing] reaching out to protect him for it to resonate, especially after the fever dream of episode four. This was the opportunity to roll this back into reality a little bit. We witness Wade coming head to head with some of his more personal demons. I think the creators really wanted to take the opportunity to tell real stories that help people relate to their characters so that we understand them better. We had quite a bit of that in episode five. But the good thing is that we also had fun and energetic scenes and five, like Pistol Pete [Cary Elwes]’s entrance and the bowling montage.

That served as a nice respite from Wade’s more difficult emotional journey and kept us moving through the episode a little bit. I think in both episodes, the challenges were probably working through the ad-lib. Adam Pally would deliver the scripted lines, but he was also free to improvise because that’s what he does. He’s a comedian who would come out with gag after gag. I’ve honestly never had this much fun watching rushes before. The hard part was probably having restraint and figuring out how much of that you should include and how much serves the story. You don’t want it to be like a sketch show because that wasn’t what Knuckles was supposed to be. But you could definitely feel how much fun they were having on the shoot.”

Balancing action and comedy was also a major challenge because the show is very much action-oriented in some of its bigger setpieces, but the comedy is also integral to the nature of both protagonists:

“There was definitely a balance to cutting a scene that serves both comedy and action. Initially, the choices are just based on your initial reaction to the rushes of what makes you laugh the most, which is the clearest delivery. But when you start stitching all the selects together, you start working out what still works and what doesn’t. I find it’s really helpful to really tighten the cut, especially with an action scene, I tighten it as much as I dare to see if it still flows and if you’re getting lost on the journey at all. Then, you do the opposite and start de-cranking certain moments to see if that helps them land better. It feels like it’s a constant push and pull until it feels right. You also constantly show it to people in the cutting room, sharing it with the assistants and the other Editors. That’s fun because it helps us see a fresh response.

And even in the premiere, which is probably the only time that I’m ever going to see certain episodes in a room full of so many other people. They laughed at moments when I wouldn’t have expected them to laugh. Everyone has their own response to the material, but so much of it is aided by sound. Seeing a standard fall can be funny, but when it’s married to this ridiculous, over-the-top sound, it just makes it funnier. The louder it is, the funnier it gets. And we played with sound a lot and had room to do that because the series wasn’t exactly fully grounded in reality. We had the room to play around a little bit more to be silly and fun with it.”

As you can see, there was a lot to talk about here in our almost 30-minute-long conversation, and the quotes above are just a tease of what we covered in our full interview, which can be seen below. Mansor also explained the process of editing Wade’s plan in episode two, Pistol Pete’s introduction in episode five, and the “Push it to the Limit” montage that gives the fifth episode’s bowling scene a unique aesthetic.

You can listen to my full interview with Liyana below and stream Knuckles on Paramount+ today:

[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]