‘Bob Hearts Abishola' EPs Address Series Finale & Comedy's Lasting Legacy: "Majority Of People Who Watched Our Show Had Never Met A Nigerian"

‘Bob Hearts Abishola’ EPs Address Series Finale & Comedy’s Lasting Legacy: “Majority Of People Who Watched Our Show Had Never Met A Nigerian”

SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the series finale of Bob Hearts Abishola on CBS.

The multi-camera comedy about an American businessman who falls in love with a Nigerian nurse wrapped May 6 in much the same way it kicked off in 2019 — with lots of charm and affection served up by its affable stars Billy Gardell and Folake Olowofoyeku.

Here, co-creator/EP Gina Yashere, together with EP Matt Ross, talk about what went into crafting their sentimental finale, the show’s legacy, and whether they regret using a heart emoji in the title.

DEADLINE Talk about the decision to employ a time jump in the finale. Why did you do it?

GINA YASHERE There were certain stories that we started in previous seasons, like in season four we’d ended on a cliffhanger. Is Abishola going to go to Johns Hopkins? And then throughout season four, we never really touched on the subject again. So we wanted to go back full circle, and tie up that loose end and show that Abishola did go study to become a doctor and ended up becoming a doctor.

MATT ROSS The thing we got from Chuck was, in The Big Bang Theory, for example, Sheldon won the Nobel Prize, and then he and his friends all went back and had lunch together in the apartment. So we wanted a few of these characters who we love to accomplish their dreams, but also find a way to stay connected. Abishola accomplishes a dream of becoming a doctor. Kemi [played by Yashere] gets her own business. Goodwin [Bayo Akinfemi] buys the company. But they’re all still orbiting each other because their connection wasn’t a circumstance. It was because they care about each other.

DEADLINE Since most of your cast recurs, was it a balancing act to make sure you had your main ensemble present for the finale?

YASHERE We built the whole story around them and into their full potential, rather than just bringing them in to do two lines, and then they’re out. We made sure that we’re using the characters. They got a full story a full arc.

ROSS We get to see, you know, Christine [Ebersol], Barry [Henley] or Saidah [Arrika Ekulona] have three or four scenes. That was the silver lining of this rough budget cut and demotion of all of our wonderful actors. Getting a little window into where people have landed felt like the right size because we wanted to see everybody one last time. But, the heart of it had to be Bob and Abishola.

DEADLINE Gina, did you have special plans for your character, Kemi?

YASHERE Kemi throughout the seasons has always shown sparks of ambition in business. Nigerians are known to be super ambitious, super hardworking, and super over-achieving. So there was no question of Kemi remaining in the same job seven years down the line. She would have at some point wanted to start her own business, even though at the beginning of the show it looked like they were just two retirees chilling in their little apartment. Then at some point, we introduced the fact that they owned the entire building they lived in. So we always liked to push those guys’ stories forward. It was a no-brainer that Kemi was going to have a run business at some point.

DEADLINE What was that last day on set like? Were you emotional?

YASHERE Very, I cried a lot. Definitely after the final table read, I was like, ‘I’m not gonna cry!’ There were a lot of hugs and lots of tears. It was very emotional, but there was also happiness because we made it five seasons and the quality of the show never dropped. It got better and better. We were like a big family in the end.

DEADLINE What do you hope your comedy achieved?

YASHERE It doesn’t matter where the characters come from. A good story is a good fucking story. I’m hoping that it encourages networks to purchase shows from voices they may never have heard before. Experiment a little bit and be more open to diverse backgrounds. I mean, CBS is not exactly the trendiest youngest coolest network in the game. It’s mainly old white people watching. And yet this Nigerian family got into their psyche and grabbed a place in their hearts for five years. The majority of the people who watched our show had never met a Nigerian and may have never crossed the street had they seen a Nigerian walking toward them on a dark street at night. A lot of people have learned about a different culture while having a laugh at the same time. So I’m hoping that going forward, we’ll be able to sell more stories like that. I will be able to tell more stories.

DEADLINE Is there were any misconceptions about your comedy, what do you think they were?

YASHERE Even the name Abishola. There were a lot of misgivings about the name, like, ‘how are these people gonna pronounce these names? Americans can barely pronounce John.’ There was a lot of that. People had misgivings because whenever you see Africans on TV, we’ve been drug dealers or boy soldiers or whatever. There were a lot of misgivings as to how this family was going to be represented. I feel like we settled all those misgivings when the show came out. We showed that all of these characters were three-dimensional with real feelings. I was very true to the culture and kept it as authentic as possible.

ROSS Early on, we had some pretty frank conversations in the writers room. I think some people needed to hear about the responsibility of representation. If there are no Nigerian characters on TV, and then you do a joke that might be based on some Nigerian, or even worse an African stereotype that you might have in your head … in other situations, where there’s a myriad of people from that group represented on television, it might not be as big of a deal. But when you’re giving 100% of the Nigerian characters on TV that trait for the sake of a joke… As a white male showrunner producer, if I’m going to benefit from being able to market a show as saying it has these diverse voices, that it’s a show about immigrants making America great and all of that, I have to take tremendous care to not overstep with that representation and get out of the way for it to be as authentic and caring as possible.

YASHERE The joy of working on this show was when I said to [executive producers and co-creators] Chuck Lorre and Eddie Gorodetsky early on, ‘if I say something is right, or you may not realize it may be considered racist or stereotyping, you have to listen to me. You have to, otherwise this show is dead in the water.’ And they did. That’s why the show was successful.

DEADLINE What’s next for both of you?

YASHERE Whatever people want to buy! I’m currently working on a couple of other multicam ideas and one single cam, and then obviously, auditioning for things because I also act and I do stand up. I’m gonna be on the road if I need money. Whatever happens I will go where the good work is, but I’m currently working on other IPs. So I’m taking a few months out to write other scripts and then come up with some new ideas in the future.

ROSS I’ll go wherever Gina tells me. It’s become pretty clear to me that the person giving me the best career and life advices is Gina Yashere. I’m like, ‘hey, what would you do if you were me?’ And she’s like this, not this and I’m like, alright, great.

DEADLINE Now that it’s all over, do you regret having a show title that required an image of a heart instead of the word LOVE?

YASHERE Chuck, Eddie and I had many conversations about that when we were creating the show because he done Dharma & Greg and he didn’t want to do an and. He didn’t want to do loves because there was Everybody Loves Raymond. So we were like, ‘how can we do it without using loves and and?’ We came up with the emoji and called it hearts. There was a little bit of resistance in beginning because at first, they couldn’t even get the heart emoji. Like, when the show first came out they had to write out hearts because they didn’t have the capacity to do the heart emoji on those ticker tape things on the bottom of the TV screen. But we stuck with our guns. People still often mis-name the show as Bob Loves Abishola. But I think it looks better on posters.

ROSS I think everybody was won over, apart from the script coordinators.

More from Deadline