When Fox canceled “The Mick” (for reasons that are still unclear to everyone who likes quality comedy programming) fans were left with a devastating cliffhanger that now may never be resolved.
As you’ll remember, but may want to forget, the Season 2 finale (and now series finale) ended with Mickey (Kaitlin Olson) and the gang huddled around an unconscious Sabrina (Sofia Black-D’Elia), right after she had been electrocuted in a freak accident after her high school graduation. When they receive the news that the teen’s cognitive ability and/or motor functions could be forever damaged, they all stand there silently pondering what that will mean.
But co-creators Josh and Dave Chernin weren’t too concerned about wrapping up the sophomore run in such a dark way, as they thought they’d be renewed. Oops.
“Everybody was saying we were coming back, so we were pretty blindsided by that,” John Chernin told TVLine in an interview published Friday. “The general plan was to catch up months after the accident. Sabrina was going to be pretty f-ed up. We think [Black-D’Elia] is the most incredible actress, so we wanted to basically have Sabrina learn how to walk and talk again.”
Dave Chernin says he was excited to “completely change a character in the middle of the run of a show. … I know we’ve moved past injuries pretty quickly in the past, but this was going to change the character completely. We were going to do five to 10 episodes of her leaning how to walk and speak again. After that, all bets were off.”
The brothers had an idea for opening the season on Sabrina’s 18th birthday, a day that would normally be a happy occasion, but would make her even more depressed about her injuries.
“Mickey wouldn’t be able to stand the thought of that, so she’d plop Sabrina into a wheelchair and take her out clubbing for the wildest night in Manhattan you could imagine,” John Chernin reveals.”We always try to find a little bit of sweetness in a f—d-up situation.”
“We had so many great pairings on this show, but I don’t know that there’s a better one than Mickey and Sabrina,” Dave added. “They’re such worthy adversaries, and there was something so funny to us about Sabrina losing a step — or five steps — in her game. We joked about Sabrina trying to insult Mickey, but she’s stumbling through the words, so Mickey would just be like, ‘I’m going to go make a sandwich and circle back when you’ve had a chance to gather your thoughts.’”