Heading into last Wednesday’s series finale of Cougar Town, the stage seemed set for something that would wrap up plenty of arcs for most members of the Cul-de-sac Crew. The tendency for series finales in recent years has been to go big and make something that not only stands out from an average episode, but also provides substantial closure on the characters and their stories; a recent example of this done particularly well was the Parks and Recreation finale, which jumped forward in time across decades to give each key character a sendoff.
Cougar Town co-creator Bill Lawrence seemed to hint that something relatively drastic was coming in his show, too, telling Alan Sepinwall that he didn’t think modern series could get away with the Everyone Loves Raymond approach of doing a regular episode as a finale, saying “I think people want a close to it.”
Indeed, the majority of the episode seemed ready to end this era in these characters’ lives, with Ellie (Christa Miller) and Andy (Ian Gomez) moving to a neighbouring town, Laurie (Busy Philipps) and Travis (Dan Byrd) leaving the state to start franchising the Winebulance business, and even Tom (Bob Clendenin) electing to spend more time with his girlfriend and less time lurking outside Jules’ window. That wasn’t the case, though, as a late pivot revealed the moves were faked as an attempt to give Jules (Courteney Cox) the birthday gift she asked for, getting to be present at her own funeral as everyone said their goodbyes.
The series actually ended with the group still living in the same neighbourhood (even more so than usual, with Laurie and Travis moving into Grayson’s old house) and still getting together for wine, snark and Pennycan, which they’ll presumably be doing off-camera for all eternity. While that’s an unusual choice in 2015, it’s one that felt like a perfectly fitting sendoff for a show that largely built itself around small character moments rather than massive plot developments or high-concept situations.
That reliance on character rather than plot can be seen in how the show evolved over time, going from its initial concept to something that just saw a group of friends and family hanging out. Much has been written over the years about the problems with the show’s title, which really didn’t accurately reflect what it was for the majority of its lifespan.
As Alan Sepinwall wrote in 2012, “It’s an incredibly goofy, incredibly charming comedy about friends and family, about red wine and running gags and boredom, and while it’s certainly not for everyone, it’s for far more people than anyone might suspect from thinking it’s about Courteney Cox having sex with younger guys.” Lawrence told TV Guide this week that he and co-creator Kevin Biegel had to drastically change the show after four or five episodes, and the title didn’t wind up fitting any more as a result:
For Cougar Town, I knew that, had [co-creator Kevin Biegel] and I not made a creative mistake early and kind of redesigned that show after the first four or five episodes, we would be in a much different position. Because by the time we righted the ship on that show, it was a show called Cougar Town that everybody thought was about older women hooking up with younger guys. We changed it to something that we all really liked.
[… ] It became a thing that we’re proud of – mocking our own title every week in our own title cards.
They finally did get that title “changed,” using “Sunshine State” (which they seriously contemplated switching to at one point, but didn’t because of DVR settings and other issues) on the final title card, but the title situation (which Biegel has said came to be a point of pride for its awfulness after a while) points to an issue with selling shows these days, with networks going for higher-concept and more plot-driven material over stories about friends hanging out. That ignores what worked so well for some of TV’s most successful comedies, though; as Lawrence told Sepinwall, it wouldn’t be easy to sell Cheers now:
I don’t know how you sell “Cheers” today. I don’t think I could go in and go, “I want to do this show in a bar. It’s a bar run by an alcoholic and he’s really tight with the people that work there and a couple of people that go there to drink.” “What else happens?” “I don’t know.”
While plot-driven comedy has its merits, it’s far from the only way to do things, and relying too much on plot can be problematic. Archer found much more success this season by rebooting its plot-heavy reboot and returning to character stories, and while the extremely-high-concept The Last Man On Earth has shown great potential at times, its focus on big plot moments over developing characters has been problematic.
Cougar Town had notable plot moments too, including Grayson (Josh Hopkins) and Jules getting together and getting married, Laurie and Travis getting together and having a baby, and Bobby (Brian Van Holt) moving away, but they were stretched out over the life of the show and generally seemed like natural consequences of character development. That feeds into what Lawrence told TV Guide about why they only faked towards a bigger ending:
We always knew we were burdened by the fact that you’re doing a show that’s about adult friendships, to have people undergo massive changes would have been TV fraudulent. It’s not like the Friends finale where you can go, “This couple is getting married and moving to the suburbs, and this couple is having a baby.” These people are all in their 40s and it’s a show about [whiling] away the time drinking wine with your friends. That led us very quickly to the idea to kind of, not poke fun at, but head-fake as to what finales usually are, which is the dissolution of a group. Instead, we lean into the fact that for nerdy fans of this show, I would assume that they would want to think that everybody was still hanging out outside drinking wine everyday, just like the rest of us are in real life.
Cougar Town was never a “You won’t believe what happens next!” show, so this makes perfect sense. In 102 episodes across ABC and TBS, the show provided a friendly, welcoming world to tune into regularly for the character interactions, with little in the way of harsh consequences for anyone other than the poor named wine glasses.
We’re privileged to have seen this group of hilarious characters hang out for so long. Setting them up to do that for the foreseeable future felt like the perfect ending, and maybe something other shows can learn from. Sometimes, a small finale can be better than a big one.
