The Goldbergs has been renewed for a 10th season at ABC, and they are finally killing off the dad! This may seem like a strange thing to get excited about for people who don’t watch the show, but for fans of the comedy series, you know that this has needed to happen for a while.
Last December, actor Jeff Garlin, who plays the dad, Murray Goldberg, was fired from the series following a list of misconduct allegations against him. And instead of killing him off right away, they used super weird CGI to wedge him into important scenes and ignored the fact that he was almost never around the rest of the time.
I get that it was bad timing, as the actor George Segal, who played Pops on the series, had just passed away in real life, and they had his character pass away on the show as well. So it would have been weird to do back to back deaths, especially knowing Garlin was alive. And they didn’t want to make the parents get a divorce because that wasn’t the trajectory of the characters. So they were left with this unexplained absence, and weird CGI dad in the wedding and graduation episodes. But finally, they are letting him go.
I honestly felt like the last episode of Season 9 was beautifully done, and they could have stopped there. But if they are moving forward, Garlin simply has to go.
When the show returns this fall, viewers will learn that Garlin’s character, family patriarch Murray Goldberg, has been dead for several months.
Showrunner Alex Barnow tells EW of the development:
“This is going to be a family that has not reconciled the fact that their father’s gone but has sort of moved on and has dealt with a lot of that. We’re starting with optimism about [Erica’s] baby coming and looking forward to the future. It’s an opportunity for this interesting emotional basis for the way people are behaving.”
Barnow adds that he has spoken with Garlin, who is “aware that he’s not being replaced.” He continues:
“The truth is, I don’t know if he knows what his fate is, but I’m assuming he knows, would be the answer to that question. We haven’t had a subsequent conversation since the beginning of writing that he would have any specific clarity on that.”
The loss of Murray, coupled with the excitement surrounding Erica’s pregnancy, “feels like a huge reboot for us,” co-showrunner Chris Bishop says. “We have tons of momentum rolling into this new season.”
Season 10 of The Goldbergs is set to return to ABC on September 21st at (8:30/7:30c). Are you looking forward to the new season?