SPOILER ALERT: This post incorporates spoilers from “Kids See Ghosts,” the May 20 episode of The CW’s “All American.”
Billy Baker lives on… ish. Taye Diggs‘ character, who died in a bus accident midway through Season 5 of the drama, returned to “All American” through the May 20 episode.
Originally of the Season 6 episode, Olivia (Samantha Logan) struggled to complete her book about Billy, her late father, as Jordan (Michael Evans Behling) found himself at a crossroads about his possible future within the NFL. Meanwhile, Spencer (Daniel Ezra) realized he had rather more going for himself than football when a young highschool player asked for his help. Recognizing how much they needed their father — or father figure, in Spencer’s case — Laura (Monet Mazur) decided to offer her kids letters that Billy had written for them to open once they graduated college. And she or he gave Spencer Billy’s journal, the one he wrote in when Spencer first got here to live with the Baker family.
Throughout the episode, each of the children read Billy’s words — written once they were only babies, for Olivia and Jordan — and saw how much his messages affected their lives now. Diggs appeared in multiple scenes, enacting what Billy had written, as Olivia, Jordan and Spencer read his words. The episode ended with Laura talking to her late husband while he sat beside her in bed.
The return of Billy was “at all times” planned, showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll tells Variety. “Before Taye left, I made him promise that if I called, he would come back. And to Taye’s credit, from minute one, he was like, ‘Anytime you call, I’m there. Whatever you wish,’” she says. “I at all times knew there was no way we were never going to see Billy Baker again.”
It was also a private storyline for Carroll, whose father died when she was in her early 20s. Moreover, she says, there are “a disproportionate number” of writers and crew members who had lost their fathers early in life, and he or she desired to honor anyone “who’s needed to say goodbye to their parents somewhat sooner than they need to.”
“Once we all used to discuss our personal experiences, all of us form of had the identical moment of ‘I still seek advice from my dad,’ or ‘I discovered a letter of my dad’s and it triggered this conversation,’” Carroll says. “There was at all times something. It was never just over for any of us when our fathers passed, and so we actually desired to honor the reality of that moment. I knew I desired to do something where the essential people in Billy’s life were having a conversation with him without realizing they were having a conversation with him.
“After which doing something distinct for Laura, because she talks to Billy each day anyway,” she continues. “She doesn’t need a journal. She doesn’t need a letter, because he’s at all times along with her. That’s form of what that final moment represented. He’s still there co-parenting the children, to get them through these tough moments.”
The episode also featured Layla (Great Onieogou) continuing to manage along with her depression and, in therapy, seeing her late mother again — except in her vision, it was her as her mother. While the storyline could have worked at any point within the season, it organically ended up on this episode.
“As we were coping with ghosts from the past and legacies, and the hold our parents have on us and the way much they shape us for good or for bad, it felt right that this storyline should come to a head this manner for Layla in the identical episode,” Carroll says. “We were coping with the return of Billy, and never whilst a ghost — but almost the lasting memory of Billy, and the last message he had for his kids.”
While The CW has not yet renewed the drama for a Season 7, and it appears that evidently many storylines might be wrapping up — Jordan and Spencer could go to the NFL, Olivia could move to London, etc. — if it were as much as Carroll, she has “so many stories to inform.”
“We took them through their teen years, we’ve taken them through their college transition years. After that comes catapulting them from young maturity into what I prefer to call quarter-life crisis, which is at all times a fun time and really high stakes,” she says. “The network and the studio will make the choices they make, by way of once they feel this story is prepared to come back to an end. We’re continually able to proceed to grow these characters and pivot them.”
One thing viewers would like to see is Layla and Jordan get married — but with the marriage pushed until she feels ready, that will need to mean a time jump were it to happen this season. Carroll makes it sound like that possibility isn’t out of the query.
“We did a time jump initially of the season, not because we desired to leap over college years, but organically for the story, it made sense,” she says. “So we proceed to make our storytelling decisions from that place. If a time jump helps us tell probably the most organic version of the story, then we’ll absolutely try this. And if it’s more of a day-to-day, then we’re not afraid to do this either.
“Each have worked so well with these characters on this show that we’re just continually on the ride with them. And that’s my way of not freely giving any spoilers.”
