Helms and Schur, who first worked together on “The Office,” decided to take their decades-long creative back-and-forth to the next level in 2016. They were interested in exploring the issues that they, as two White men, saw happening around them.

“In particular, all the ways people cling to historical narratives and derive so much identity from them,” says Helms. “It’s an endlessly fascinating question, right? What is history? Essentially, it’s just stories that our culture tells itself. Especially at this time in American culture where identity is becoming inextricably linked to other facets of our personal histories — it just felt so precious and fascinating.”

It was in this abstract place that Helms and Schur began to shape the idea of the main character, Nathan Rutherford: He is a good guy with blind spots; a small-town man who takes immense pride in his family’s history without any objectivity or context for the legacy the Rutherfords built on the backs of the Minishonka, a tribe who settled in that area long before White Europeans arrived.

“This meant that the tension and the comedy of the story needed to relate to Native American people,” says Schur. “And that’s not really our story to tell.”

Where can I watch “Rutherford Falls”?

Exclusively available for streaming only on Peacock.

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