Season 2 of Happy’s Place just dropped a heartbreaker as the beloved Bobbie (Reba McEntire) and Emmett (Rex Linn) called it quits on their whirlwind romance.
Bobbie and Emmett’s budding love story has been nothing short of swoon-worthy, and the couple was smitten in Season 2’s “Silence Was Golden” in anticipation of their three-month anniversary. But amid the exciting milestone, Emmett was forced to come clean about a secret he kept for far too long: his previous knowledge about Bobbie’s late father, Happy, having an affair and fathering another child, Bobbie’s estranged half-sister, Isabella (Belissa Escobedo).
Having known about Isabella for years, Emmett struggled to reveal this truth because he promised secrecy to his best friend, but after the cat was let out of the bag, Emmett finally came clean with Bobbie. Bobbie understood how sorry Emmett was, and respected his decision to keep his best friend’s secret. However, the betrayal hurt Bobbie dearly because she told Emmett that they should just be good friends.
“Are you ending things between us?” Emmett asked, heartbroken. “Because that’s not what I want at all.”
“I just don’t have it in me to be anything more than that right now,” Bobbie shrugged tearfully, leaving Emmett with her head held high.
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NBC Insider connected with Happy’s Place executive producer, co-creator, and showrunner Kevin Abbott as well as Pamela Fryman, director and executive producer, about the tear-jerking episode, which they revealed was a hard watch for the entire cast and crew.
Happy’s Place co-creator and showrunner Kevin Abbott joked about why Emmett and Bobbie broke up
Still, humor sits at the core of Happy’s Place. When asked about the thinking behind Bobbie and Emmett’s tragic break-up, Abbott teased, “Reba came to me, and she said, ‘I want to be able to write Emmett out of the show if Rex is mean to me…'”
“That would be amazing if it was true,” Happy’s Place director Pamela Fryman said.
All jokes aside, the Happy’s Place crew is well aware of the heartbreak in seeing Bobbie and Emmett separate, but wanted to tell a realistic story of the ebbs and flows of falling in love.
“We want to be compelling,” Abbott explained. “We are Happy’s Place, but life isn’t always happy. We want to make certain that we put our people through some bumps and bruises. Because ultimately, the message of our show is one of hope.”
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Emmett and Bobbie were bound to “blow up”
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Abbott continued by explaining that Bobbie and Emmett’s relationship was never going to be all sunshine and rainbows, because few actual romances are. Love is messy, and the Happy’s Place writers wanted to show that.
“We want to complicate a relationship. We knew we wanted to have a reason why there was some impediment to them being together. We wanted it to be interesting,” Abbott explained, adding that the reveal of Emmett always knowing about Isabella was an idea first conceived back in Season 1 of the NBC sitcom. “We knew, ‘OK, well, that’s gonna have to blow up. It’s gonna have to blow up.'”
And blew up it did as Bobbie decided the pain of being kept in the dark was too much to continue in her relationship with Emmett. Like McEntire told NBC Insider, Season 2 has been a certified “emotional rollercoaster,” but there have been plenty of laughs amid the drama.
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“I personally love drama with my comedy,” Abbott said. “I like to get the laughs out of emotional difficulty, and I think that plays. I say that sometimes you laugh the hardest at a funeral because your emotions are so raw. We don’t want to put our audience through that every week. But sometimes, in order to show this is life, these are real people, they go through stuff, they’re going to go through heartache, too. But they’re going to be okay, ultimately, because that’s also our message. I find that rich. I always say I want to tell compelling stories, and we’ll make them funny.”
Now, whether or not the previously smitten couple might get back together is up in the air, but fans have their fingers crossed for a reconciliation between the lovebirds. Find out what happens with Bobbie and Emmett next by watching Season 2 of Happy’s Place on Fridays at 8/7c on NBC and the next day on Peacock.
Reporting by Tara Bennett