SPOILER ALERT! This put up comprises particulars from the sequence finale of The CW‘s Walker.
If it had been as much as sequence star Jared Padalecki and showrunner Anna Fricke, Walker could be persevering with its run on The CW. However, if it needed to finish, they’re glad to ship it off with the Season 4 finale on Wednesday night time.
“I’m heartbroken. I like the present. I like the solid and the crew. I’m and can be eternally grateful for the 4 years we had with one another and the friendships and relationships that I made. However proper now, It’s robust,” Padalecki advised Deadline of ending the present’s run. “I do know it’ll be round for folks to observe and rewatch. So I’m grateful for that, however I’m definitely gonna miss it.”
Walker was formally canceled in Could, and Fricke mentioned they had been unaware of the destiny of the present when writing the finale. As “there’s at all times a danger in community tv,” she defined that she tried to deliver sufficient tales to a satisfying conclusion whereas leaving threads to discover in a possible Season 5.
This season, Walker struggled with an empty nest as Stella (Violet Brinson) and August (Kale Culley) started to department out on their very own. After 4 seasons of looking for a work-life stability, he lastly takes a step again from his Ranger duties to spend some prolonged time along with his household and informs newly minted Lt. Cassie Perez that he’ll be taking a go away of absence.
“It actually was about getting the household to an excellent place. They’re on to their subsequent chapter,” Fricke mentioned. “That second when the household drives off collectively, the youngsters and Walker and Geri, seems like some kind of closure in a method. In an ideal world, [it would have] gone on and there could be extra tales and extra issues, however they do seem to be they’re in an excellent place.”
Padalecki provides kudos to the writers for the place they go away Walker, as a result of “that’s how I really feel proper now,” he says.
“I’ve had this job for 20 years. There’s by no means been per week of recent tv the place I haven’t been No. 1 on the decision sheet of an hour lengthy present. I’m nonetheless grieving, and I in all probability will for some time. However I really feel actually excited to spend extra time with my spouse, our kids…the remainder of my household, my buddies. So I’m completely satisfied for Walker, I believe,” he mentioned. “I’m bummed that he’s not on the subsequent job, as a result of I do know he loves being a canine with a bone and getting his work achieved, however I’m so completely satisfied he will get to take this break and reset and spend time along with his family members.”
Because the cancellation determination loomed, Fricke revealed the community gave her the chance to make modifications to the ultimate episode to present audiences extra closure, however she opted to not.
“It didn’t sit properly with me to attempt to wrap up the entire sequence with one revised scene,” she defined. “It appeared too rushed and too hurried, and it could have felt tacked on. So we opted to depart the finale because it was.”
Nevertheless, she did take the community up on their provide to air an prolonged model of the episode, which allowed for a number of extra scenes that she thinks viewers will respect, together with a uncommon scene with your entire Walker household.
“It was the final household scene that everybody was in collectively,” she remembered. “It took ceaselessly to get it as a result of everybody was emotional…it wasn’t a pivotal scene, or something like that. It was only a enjoyable power with all of them there, which was at all times my favourite factor. So I’m actually glad that that made it again in.”
Coincidentally, Padalecki additionally remembered that scene fondly, telling Deadline “it simply felt like a pleasant goodbye each on digicam and off….I’m excited for that, since you really feel the love that all of us have for one another.”
A minimum of, Fricke jokes, no one was kidnapped or on the point of loss of life when the credit rolled. As a substitute, the issues left as much as the viewers’ creativeness are largely optimistic, like Walker’s eventual proposal to Geri (Odette Annable).
Within the episode, there’s one fast shot of Walker admiring the engagement ring inside its field earlier than tucking it into his pocket and assembly his household exterior. She says that to incorporate the precise proposal would have felt “too quickly.”
“Walker mentioned this to Emily in a flashback. She mentioned, ‘What is going to you do if I’m gone?’ And he mentioned, ‘Marry Geri and work at Sidestep.’ And that was at all times sort of a joke for what the top of the sequence could be,” she mentioned. “However in my thoughts, I didn’t wish to get all the best way to a proposal…I don’t assume they’re there but.”
If there’s one factor Fricke is most disillusioned she gained’t get to discover, it’s James Van Der Beek’s arc as Walker’s new neighbor — a full circle second for the showrunner, whose first TV job was on Dawson’s Creek.
Within the last moments of the episode, Van Der Beek pulls as much as the home as Walker and his household are headed on their trip and, despite the fact that the second is fleeting, it hints at a deliciously dramatic storyline for Season 5.
“It was gonna be a cool. We had huge plans for Season 5,” Fricke mentioned. “Properly, perhaps there’ll be a film.”
Properly, no matter iteration of Walker could or could not come subsequent, Fricke provides that she has loads of concepts to discover.
“Even from the primary whisper of perhaps that is the top, the producers had been all speaking about, ‘How can we preserve this going? What can we spin off? What can we do?’” she mentioned. “I believe these are nice characters and an ideal world and I completely love working with the crew in Austin. So we positively give it some thought quite a bit.”
When requested if she might disclose any of her concepts, she teased: “We at all times wished to do the Hawk’s Shadow story. I’d actually observe any of those characters. I actually at all times wished to see extra out of any of them. I’d observe any of them wherever, to be sincere.”
