When Sweet Magnolias showrunner Sheryl Anderson told GLAMOUR that season four of the Netflix hit series would feature “huge twists and turns and surprises within every episode,” she wasn’t overstating things. Nearly every one of the 10 episodes in the new season (which dropped on Thursday, February 6) features a shocking development, but episode 402—titled “Practical Dreams”—delivered the most stunning one of all: Bill Townsend (played by Chris Klein) has died.
The news comes in the form of Bill’s sharp-tongued mother, Bonnie Townsend, who shows up on her former daughter-in-law’s doorstep and says, “It’s Bill. He’s dead.”
Judith Ivey (best known for Designing Women, Will & Grace, and more) plays the formidable matriarch to such delightful perfection that it reverberates throughout the entire season, even after she returns to Texas with her husband, Tripp, and Bill’s girlfriend, Kathy. Bill’s death—from a heart attack—injects a sense of urgency into all the characters on the show, who quickly realize just how precious time is.
While some supporting characters are written off the canvas so an actor can pursue other roles, Anderson says that wasn’t the case here; Bill’s death was purely storyline dictated. As a result, she had to break the news to Chris Klein—who had played the playboy father since season one—that his time on the show had come to an end.
“It was so hard to tell him,” Anderson tells GLAMOUR. “We all love him, and he loves the show.”
Below, Anderson elaborates more on why the decision was made, her conversation with Klein, and whether Bonnie and Kathy might return to Serenity in a possible season five.
GLAMOUR: Let’s talk about Bill’s death. That was a shocker. Was that purely storyline dictated? Or was Chris Klein not available this season?
Sheryl Anderson: Oh, no, no, no, no. We love Chris, and Chris loves the show, so it was really, really hard to say, “Hey, Chris, we want to take the show in a different direction, and we need this cataclysmic event to shake up everybody.” Because it’s his death that makes all our adults, and especially our men, question what they’re doing with their lives. That theme of ‘tomorrow isn’t promised’. You get to a certain age, and when a friend of yours, who’s your age, dies, it’s always too soon, but especially when you are that age. You realise time isn’t on our side and think, Am I doing what I want to do? Am I with the person I want to be with? What other changes do I need to make in my life?
We wanted to just kind of turn the ship 90 degrees. It was so hard to tell him, because we all love him, and he loves the show. But he understood and took one for the team, because it allowed us to tell stories that we wouldn’t have had had an entrée into otherwise. It was story with a lot of sadness.
As a result, you brought on Judith Ivey as Bill’s mother, Bonnie Townsend. Will she return in a potential season five?
Nobody ever leaves Serenity forever.
Okay, good. How did her casting come about?
We had a dream list of women to play that part, and Judith was at the top of it. We asked our casting director, “Do you think she’d do it?” And the response was, “Let’s ask.” So we did, and she read some scripts and really liked the character. She and I had some really deep conversations about Bonnie, and how Bonnie became Bonnie. At one point, she used the character of Amanda Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie as an example, and I thought, I’m a theatre major, I can lay down and die right now.
I really loved the complexity that she brought to kind of a tough character, and you wind up loving her. It was just so fabulous to see her with Caroline Lagerfelt (Paula, Maddie’s mum), who’s a dear friend of hers from their Broadway days. To see the two of them going head to head, as well as with JoAnna and Brooke and Heather.… We were just in awe. Same with Jodi Benson [as Cal’s mom]. Everybody came ready to match their energy, and it was spectacular.
Let’s talk about that near slap between Maddie and Bonnie. That scene was so tense, and seeing Maddie stop her was fantastic.
It was symbolic of Maddie taking control of the relationship, because when Maddie was married to Bill, she tried to be the daughter-in-law that Bonnie and Tripp wanted. Part of wanting to meet Bonnie and Tripp was to further unpack Maddie’s first marriage and why her marriage to Cal is and needs to be so different for her. And so, to see her with her former mother-in-law and then, with her new mother-in-law, was a way to contrast the two men, but also the kind of daughter-in-law she had tried to be and the kind of daughter-in-law she gets to be now.
Tell me about choreographing the moment when Bonnie goes to slap Maddie.
Oh, it’s a huge scene. But most of the problem with the slap was like, did we want it head-on? Did we want it from the side? It was an angles question, but JoAnna [Garcia Swisher as Maddie] and Judith gave it their all every single time.
Kathy also returns as a result of Bill’s passing, and she seems to have really changed. Knowing that nobody leaves Serenity forever, would you like to explore her character more, especially now that we’ve seen this shift and since she’s Ronnie’s sister?
If we are fortunate enough to get more seasons, I would love to have Kathy come back, because we loved the suspicion that turned into surprise, that turned into pleasure of, Oh, she has changed. I fully believe that Kathy continues to grow and change. I love the idea that, every time Kathy comes back to Serenity, she’s a little bit more mature, a little bit calmer. She has found her mission, but particularly because she is the only family that Ronnie has. So to see Kathy again, and see how Kathy and Ronnie are both working out the family issues that they’ve mentioned in different ways, but to the same goal, I think, would be fascinating.
Let’s talk about the other reveal stemming from Bill’s passing: that Isaac is his son, which Bonnie announces publicly at Sullivan & Friends.
The reason that we chose to reveal it in that moment was more a part of Bonnie’s character, that she feels she knows everything and it’s up to her to control who knows what. And genuinely, it didn’t occur to her that people didn’t know, but because we had held onto that secret for such a long time, we wanted it to come out in the most explosive way possible. Having it come out at that dinner means nobody was ahead of anybody else, except Maddie, in knowing, and that we were able to literally see the ripples in the pond as people realized it was out. Plus, because they are the heart of the show, the hardest hit were actually the Magnolias; Helen and Dana Sue were like, What? That the response from the family was so welcoming.
But then, there’s Noreen and Isaac. We had known all along that that would be the roughest [in terms of coming to terms with this secret]. Chris Medlin and Jamie Lynn Spears are so wonderful, and so wonderful together. Their characters started off as one of our unexpected friendships, and then that friendship just got so deep that we hope everybody will understand why he was like, “Every time I thought, I didn’t want to ruin this.” Her compassion and forgiveness and understanding are an outgrowth of her love for him as a friend and probably her closest friend. That’s what mattered most—not who his biological dad was, but that he is the man she embraces as her best friend. This was a way for her to show how much he means to her by saying, “Well, I wish you had told me, but I get it. And I love you.”
And now Isaac has this new romance with Michael.
We wanted to bring somebody into his life. I told Chris, “Are you ready for your rom-com arc?” And he was like, “Yes, please.” We wanted to make sure that Michael was somebody who was going to be as handsome and as charming and as funny and the perfect match for Isaac.
Plus, they have a history together.
Right. And for everybody who fantasises about the one that got away—and actually, that’s not even it with them, it was like they didn’t like each other. So I guess they’re more enemies-to-lovers arc, in terms of romance tropes. If we get another season, I think it would be interesting to explore Isaac’s romantic life as a broad canvas.
This article originally appeared on Glamour US.
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