Neighborhood Bosses Reflect on Emotional Finale and Uncertain Future of Multi-Camera Comedies

After eight seasons, CBS has officially moved out of "The Neighborhood."
Monday's heartfelt series finale kicked off with a double wedding, as Marty (Marcel Spears) married Courtney (Skye Townsend), and Malcolm (Sheaun McKinney) married Mercedes (Amber Stevens West), with both couples also preparing to welcome babies — the second for Marty and Courtney, and the first for Malcolm and Mercedes. And with both their sons starting families of their own, Calvin (Cedric The Entertainer) and Tina (Tichina Arnold) had plenty of quality time to look forward to — especially with best friends Dave (Max Greenfield), Gemma (Beth Behrs), and their son Grover (Hank Greenspan) packed up for a move back to Michigan, forcing Calvin to finally confront that the Johnsons were more than just the Butlers' neighbors. They were family.

Below, co-showrunners Mike Schiff and Bill Martin — who first joined the show in Season 5 — break down the emotional decision to split up TV's favorite neighbors, explain why the finale skipped over the actual wedding ceremony, reveal alternate endings and Easter eggs that didn't make the final cut, and reflect on whether "The Neighborhood" could wind up being one of the last long-running multi-camera sitcoms of its kind.

Saying Goodbye

Some shows go for slice-of-life finales, where you know life will go on exactly as we've seen it, episode after episode. Instead, Dave, Gemma, and Grover move back to Michigan, breaking up the Butlers and Johnsons. Why the big move?

SCHIFF
We just felt like we needed a big story with Calvin and Dave. Something big needed to happen in one of their lives. The Butlers had two new daughters-in-law and two new grandchildren [on the way], so to balance the scale, it couldn't just be that the Johnsons were putting up new wallpaper. They needed something big in their lives.

MARTIN
We were taking a wide look at the show — from the very first frame of the very first episode — and the whole show was about Dave and Calvin, and Dave trying to make Calvin his best friend. He loved Calvin, and was so effusive and obvious about it, and we felt like the real bookend would be to drag Calvin kicking and screaming into Dave's emotional turf, and to make him say, in one way or another, "I love you, too." It took eight years to get Calvin there, but that was the bookend the show deserved.

Final Episodes and Planning

The penultimate episode, which set up the double wedding and revealed that both Marty and Courtney, and Malcolm and Mercedes were expecting, very much felt like Part 1 of your series finale. Technically, you only have the one episode, but were you thinking of this as a two-parter?

SCHIFF
You know, it was never on the schedule as a two-parter. Even the last three were really sort of a three-act [story] of how the Johnsons go. We'd obviously been planting seeds along the way, including in the very first episode [of Season 8] when Dave lost his job. And then we began to understand why Gemma would move. She had a great career, but [had grown] disenchanted with that.

Pretty early on, we said Marilu [Henner, who plays Dave's mom Paula] should come back and lure Dave back to Michigan, and we checked in months before. We thought we'd have her either in the fourth to-last, or third-to-last episode, and she was very happy to clear her schedule for us, which was great. And it all seemed to fall into place.

Missing the Wedding Ceremony

You've been building toward this big double wedding... but then we don't actually see the wedding. Was that a matter of logistics? Limited runtime? Or was there never really a plan to show the ceremony itself, knowing audiences have seen their fair share of TV weddings before?

MARTIN
That's the thing: We've seen TV weddings a million times before. We didn't have anything [to set this one apart]. We didn't want someone to come in and say, "Stop the wedding!" We wanted to make sure we got the obligatory stuff out of the way so we could just have fun and have our characters sit in that living room, be on that couch, and say their final peace to each other.

SCHIFF
We realized we had to isolate them. We had to get them in the living room without all the [wedding guests] and all the music. We needed to strike that balance between being big and fun, which we also have — and Calvin has his speech at the end [of the reception] — but also have enough time to get [our characters] alone in different pairings.

Alternate Endings and Easter Eggs

We lost a couple of things along the way. I mean, I'll tell you that we had a [storyline] that I liked that would have been good. We thought that Marty was worried about telling his dad that Courtney was going to be taking time off now that they have two kids. But actually, it turned out that Marty was going to [step away from The Fuse Box] because he didn't want to be in cars his whole life. He was a rocket scientist. He loved [running] this company with his dad, but he had to go back to his first love, and Courtney was basically going to take his spot at The Fuse Box — which is a thing that I know happened, but is not in the show because we just didn't have enough time.

Final Scene and Cast Inclusion

The final scene doesn't include Marty, Courtney and Daphne, or Malcolm and Mercedes. It's just our two central couples — Calvin and Tina, and Dave and Gemma — and, of course, Grover. Why not include the entire cast?

MARTIN
I think it was mostly driven by Beth feeling like that foursome was such her world [on this show], and it was going to be hard for her not to have that goodbye moment for them. And once she put it in those terms, we realized, "Oh, she's right." It's where the show started, it's where the show should end. There was a point where we were going to end on the toast at the wedding, but it killed us that we weren't giving people that moment. And then, of course, once we decided to have [Dave give Calvin] the kombucha in the jar, the whole thing came together.

SCHIFF
It was hard, because Sheaun and Marcel, and Skye and Amber are so great. But it just felt like if we brought every character back for that last tag, we were going to get bogged down with it.

The Future of Multi-Camera Sitcoms

Will Sitcoms Ever Reach 150 Episodes Again?

I was thinking about the state of the multi-camera comedy. Heading into next season, ABC has one ("Shifting Gears"), CBS has one ("Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage"), and NBC has two ("Happy's Place" and "Newlyweds"). That's it! Even a couple years ago, we still had "Bob Hearts Abishola" and "The Conners." Then I think about the run you guys have had — eight seasons, 156 episodes. Do you think there's a chance "The Neighborhood" winds up being one of the last, if not the last multi-cam to have a run like this?

SCHIFF
It's certainly possible. Needless to say, neurotic comedy writers talk about this a lot. Will it make a comeback? Sometimes these things do. Or is it going the way of the variety show, which is, "People don't need that anymore. They get variety elsewhere." Do audiences find them inauthentic? Maybe they don't believe in [the genre].

And yet, "Georgie & Mandy" is the most-viewed comedy on broadcast, and you guys were number one on Monday nights...

SCHIFF
It's interesting, because every year we hear, "They really want multi-cams," and then multi cams don't get on television, so I'm beginning to question whether they might think they want multi cams. Because when push comes to shove, they're more interested in single-cams, which we also do! I take great pains to let readers know that Martin and Schiff are very happy to do single-cam. We did "The Unicorn" [for CBS]. I just don't want this article to be "Martin and Schiff Say Goodbye to Television."

MARTIN
You can write "Schiff Says Goodbye to Television," but Martin is still very much interested!

SCHIFF
I do think, not to get too into the weeds, that the new model of shorter orders doesn't play to the strength of multi-cams, which is hanging with people that you enjoying hanging out with, and enjoy laughing with them. [Shorter orders] are not really good for comedy in general. Comedy is scratching a different itch than a drama. If you turn on "The Pitt," you're going to see people's stomachs cut open. If you turn on "House of the Dragon," it's only eight episodes, and you're going to have to wait two years for the next batch, but there are going to be dragons fighting each other and castles falling. That's not where the comedy sweet spot is.

The streamers keep trying to do multi-cams, and the only two success stories are "Fuller House" and "The Ranch," which ran 75-80 episodes. All the others get such short orders that you don't have a chance to get to familiar with these characters.

SCHIFF
Yes. You can't do eight episodes of older Frasier, and then wait two years. It's just not what people will tune in for. And the comedies that are working in streaming are the ones where there are already 200 episodes. It's "The Office," it's "Friends." Because you can sit and enjoy those people for a long time instead of this eight-episode deal. I understand the economics of it that they think are going to work for them, but it doesn't work for comedy. It just doesn't, and I hope that they realize it. Because I think people would be more than happy to watch a comedy in the way that they still watch "The Office" if we could give them enough that they feel they've had a meal instead of just an appetizer.

MARTIN
Give it a couple of years. "The Neighborhood" will land on Netflix with its 156 episodes, and it'll land in the Top 10. Subscribers will see the four main actors they know and love from other sitcoms, and press play.

SCHIFF
I hope so.