Ben Feldman, Lauren Ash, Colton Dunn, showrunners Jonathan Green and Gabe Miller break down what would've happened in season 7.
Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched Thursday's one-hour series finale of Superstore.
Cloud 9 is officially no more.
Superstore bid everyone a heavenly day Thursday with an emotional series finale, wrapping up its six-season run with a moving final montage (and the rare time jump!) that gave fans peace of mind that their favorite Cloud 9 employees were happy, successful and most importantly, still friends. It was Garrett who fittingly gave the final announcement over the loudspeaker in the emptying big box store, the message doubling as a literal and figurative summation of the little show that could.
And, of course, Amy and Jonah finally got their happy ending. After what ended up being a temporary hiccup in their relationship when Amy abruptly broke things off at the start of the season before starting her corporate career in sunny California, she confessed to Jonah that she made a big mistake. Even though Jonah had begun testing the dating waters, Amy's admission was all he needed to forgive his one true love and start anew. And start over they did. Though we didn't see a proposal or a wedding, a photo of the couple from their honeymoon in Greece (a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants callback perhaps?) confirmed they'd soon take that next step in their relationship.
If you weren't already teary-eyed from the finale, Superstore sure did a number when it paid tribute to Jonah's memorable "moments of beauty" gesture in the series' first episode, when he impressed Amy with glow-in-the-dark stars all across the ceiling of Cloud 9 and did the same for the kids' bedroom in the closing montage. He's now running for city council with major Beto O'Rourke vibes, while Amy is climbing the corporate ladder and succeeding. (There was also a very special cameo in the series finale by creator/former showrunner Justin Spitzer, who played the nameless guy Glenn enthusiastically hugs in the store.)
"I was very happy with what Jonah separately, and Jonah and Amy, got in the end," series star/producer Ben Feldman told ET. "It was hugely satisfying and super emotional."
Had America Ferrera not returned for the final two episodes (and a bonus scene) of Superstore, Feldman insists they would have figured out a way to tie things up -- though it might not have been to the desires and wishes of fans.
"We would have found a bow somehow. We would have found a Jonah bow, but we wouldn't have found the shippers' bow, the Simmosa bow," he acknowledged, adding that "seeing into the future of everybody['s lives] was nice and a really satisfying ending." "It was incredible having America back for a bunch of reasons. Story-wise, of course you want to give [the fans everything]. Our fans have been so incredible. You want to give the fans the ending that they need. You don't give the fans what they want all the time, you give them what they need. And to a degree, Superstore did that a lot. We rarely trafficked in happy endings."
"But with Amy and Jonah, we're tired. We've been doing this for a long time. Let's all go home happy," Feldman said of the couple's upbeat ending. "But then also having America there... America's such a strong, intelligent presence. To have her involved in the discussions about the final trajectory of Amy and Jonah and what Amy wants and what Jonah wants and what makes sense to show and what level do we turn the dial to in each particular moment was super useful. It was just great having her back anyway because it felt like the show."
While Amy and Jonah ultimately get to enjoy their own "moment of beauty," showrunners Jonathan Green and Gabe Miller admitted it was a tall order trying to figure out how to get them to a place, in a very short amount of time, where they could realistically reconcile without it being considered too fast or sudden.
"The trickiest thing was figuring out how to honor what had happened in the breakup and how hurt Jonah was and how the rug was pulled out from under him, while also not having the finale be full of conflict and drama and tense discussions," Green told ET, while Miller chimed in and noted how helpful it was to have Ferrera back "for two episodes as opposed to just the finale."
"We had a little more time," Miller said. "The fight for the store helped them bob the ice a little bit and rediscover what they loved about each other."
As for that final montage, it seemed like a fitting send-off to have Garrett sign the show off with his last Cloud 9 announcement, where he observed that while many jobs suck, it's important to enjoy the moments that don't. And you've especially hit the jackpot if you've become true friends with your coworkers. That message also rang true for the cast in real life.
"100 percent, you know? The nice thing about that moment in the show is it's very connected to, not just the pilot episode, but originally what Garrett's role was on the show. He was playing much more of a narrator role and talking about, in double meanings, announcements that also were connected to what's going on emotionally with the characters," Colton Dunn told ET. "In this last one, we got to do the same thing. Not only was it emotionally connecting to the characters, but also to the cast. For me, playing that moment was very nice because it wasn't just Garrett saying that to the people at the store, but it really was an opportunity for me, Colton the actor, to say that to the rest of the employees and to all the fans out there who are watching the show. What an incredible experience that it is and the lesson to be learned from this show is that it's really about the people that you're going through and experiencing life with."
"We had to film our reactions to Garrett's character saying that speech, but obviously Colton wasn't there when they filmed the reaction," Nico Santos told ET. "So it was just our AD saying Garrett's monologue and even just with our AD, who is not an actor, just saying the words and what was in the text, it was a hard scene to film your reactions to because -- Lauren [Ash] and I have talked about this -- we were both crying when we were filming that scene."
Added Ash: "Yeah, fully crying. It fits so beautifully for the show and it fits so beautifully for all of us. I did not get through it. We haven't seen the episode yet, but I don't know how much of that they were able to even use of me because I was just fully crying."
Green and Miller were both part of The Office's final season and saw firsthand how tricky it was to put together a fulfilling ending to a beloved comedy. Because they only learned about Superstore's cancellation around Thanksgiving, just prior to starting the season's 10th episode, and were fully prepared to pitch season 7 storylines, they were forced to do some major tweaks to the back half of the season in an attempt to close as many loops as they could.
"We got to see firsthand what a monumental and complex task that is to do in a satisfying way," Miller said. "And we think Greg Daniels did an amazing job [on The Office]. But there were definitely a lot of discussions and writing and rewriting what that should be. [Creator] Justin Spitzer was very involved with wrapping up the series. And that whole thing was his idea, it came fully formed from him, the idea of Garrett making the final announcement and using that as a way to go to flash-forward and see what people are going to be doing in the future, which we loved, as a way to actually see it. Instead of ending the finale with hearing about what everyone's plans were. We love that time jump."
"I don't think it could have been done any other way. I absolutely loved it," Feldman said of Superstore's closing act. "I've seen many different cuts of the finale and the major changes that happened, as far as I could tell in the cuts, were almost all around that ending and how we landed the plane and how the montage played and what elements were kept in and left out. It was very emotional. As someone who's been on the show since the beginning, it was great to see Garrett. We abandoned Garrett's announcements being moralistic narrations a long time ago and it was great to come back around and see that at the end."
Still, Superstore's ending left a lot of lingering storylines unresolved. The producers offered a glimpse into what would have been the focus of season 7 had the comedy earned a renewal. For one thing, Dina and Garrett's up-and-down romance would have taken center stage in a new season.
"We were setting up Dina and Garrett as we were leading toward the end of season 6, where they finally decided to give it a go as an actual relationship, bonafide relationship," Miller revealed. "We thought that was a fun throw forward as well for season 7. Like, what are they like when they try to just be a couple?"
"Yeah, we were going to shift in the absence of Amy coming back and we were trying to make a shift to Dina and Garrett as the main romantic couple that we're rooting for, even though they are so different from Jonah and Amy as a couple," Green added.
"We were both super excited about exploring that relationship because it had been such a, 'It's just a sidepiece thing.' We never really got to dive into them," Dunn observed. "Okay, now they are in a relationship and how is this going to play out? I think it would have been hilarious. I know it would have been hilarious. I know it would've been great, but c'est la vie. Maybe somebody out there is going to have to come up with some crazy spinoff for us and pitch that."
"Absolutely. It was such a nice moment in the 'All-iday' party episode, Dina got high inadvertently and she's terrified. She doesn't want to tell her boyfriend, Brian, but then the second she sees Garrett, she's like, 'Oh, I've got to tell Garrett everything,'" Ash said. "And that actually made me tear up when I watched it, because it was such a subtle, but beautiful moment for her that she's, of course, completely doesn't even realize in the moment that it's like, 'Oh, she loves him. That's her person.'"
Other arcs Green and Miller were teeing up before they had to abandon their plans included a Dina versus Glenn, store versus store situation in season 7.
"We had the fulfillment center idea in place, but it was different. We were still liking the idea that they fight for the store, but aren't able to stop it from [closing]. But the end of the season was originally going to be, you see a big construction wall up in the store and it's basically going to be half store and half fulfillment center -- a hybrid fulfillment store is something that is really happening," Miller shared. "And we were heading toward season 7 where Dina's running the fulfillment center side and Glenn is running the store side. What is that like?"
"That was going to be a payoff to the whole thing of them as co-managers and showing that they each have different skills that they bring to the table as managers. Dina's better with the practical 'Let's get the job done' kind of stuff and Glenn is more people-minded," Green noted. "It seemed like a natural [next step]. It would have been fun to see the two camps of the store -- one led by Dina and one led by Glenn in a season 7 with their different approaches to things."
As for what the cast will miss most about their six years on Superstore, they all had varying memories to share. But they all had one common thread: each other.
"I'll miss our dinners," Feldman said. "That's one of the things about what our show is about, which is it's not about the place and it's not about the thing you're doing, it's the people you're doing it with. I thought I was going to be sad looking at our stage for the last time or even my trailer for the last time at base camp, and I realized on those last times, those are just places and things. It's the people that I'm going to miss. I won't miss the break room scenes or the blue vests, I'll miss the dinners that we all went to. I'll miss our trips that we took to Vegas and Austin and New Orleans. I'm going to miss seeing these people all the time."
"On that last day, I kept just walking around and saying, 'Six years is longer than you go to high school.' I've never had a job for six years. It's such an immense amount of time in your life. That's a chunk of time, especially in terms of your life to this point. When you book a network show as an actor, it's like, 'Oh my gosh, I booked a network show,' and then it gets picked up. But then when you realize that it's with a bunch of people that you genuinely care about and you also realize that you're creatively collaborating and creating this thing together, that you really become invested in, that's a special 'stars align, once in your lifetime' for one of those," Ash said. "That's not to say that every other job I ever get is going to be terrible, but I think that this was the special one, for sure."
For more on Superstore, watch below.
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