Showrunner Kevin Wade has revealed how he took inspiration from some of TV’s most iconic finales ever to craft the last-ever episode of the CBS drama.
The Reagans, led by Commissioner Frank (played by Tom Selleck), have been on our screens since 2010, solving crimes and dealing with their own family dramas in New York City.
CBS sparked fury among fans last November when it announced that the show’s 14th season would be its last.
Despite the backlash, the first 10 episodes of the final season aired earlier this year, with another eight set to drop this October.
Head writer Kevin has now given hints about what fans can expect from the Reagans’ last family dinner and the final case they’ll crack before they say goodbye, reports the Mirror.
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The cast also includes Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Danny Reagan, Bridget Moynahan as ADA Erin Reagan, and Will Estes as Sergeant Jamie Reagan.
Viewers will have to say goodbye to the Reagan family and a host of other much-loved characters when the finale airs on CBS in December.
“I mean, if you’re on for 14 years, in at least four or five of those years you started out a season going, ‘This could be the last one,’ just as a numbers game,” Kevin confessed to TVLine.
Kevin has been deep in thought about the show’s conclusion, as he revealed: “So, I’ve thought about it a lot, along with my colleagues. [Executive producer] Siobhan Byrne O’Connor and I would talk about it a lot over the seasons.”
In crafting the final chapter, Kevin looked to the classics for inspiration, sharing his research method: “I rewatched the series finales of great shows, going back to M*A*S*H and Cheers and Mary Tyler Moore, and certainly The Sopranos…,” he shared.
He discovered a common thread among these iconic finales, explaining, “I watched a lot of them for what they might have in common, and what they basically had in common, if I boiled it down, is they did a great show, and then in the last few minutes they did a little pivot towards, ‘This is also the last show’.”
Kevin noted that the finale’s nature might not be immediately obvious until its final moments.
Striving to maintain the essence of the show, he consciously steered clear of a self-congratulatory approach: “[We] avoided the ‘We are now going to do a retrospective of how great we’ve been,’ because I think people tune in just to see a really good episode of the show that they loved,” he said.
