After nine seasons and 194 episodes, the long-running sitcom “Last Man Standing” is ending on May 20.
The series follows Mike Baxter (Tim Allen), a happily married father of three daughters who finds himself the odd man out as he tries to maintain his manliness in a home surrounded by women. In the Variety Streaming Room presented by 20th Television and Fox Entertainment, Variety senior editor Michael Schneider spoke to the cast and crew of “Last Man Standing” about the end of the series. The conversation included executive producer and star Allen, actors Hector Elizondo and Nancy Travis, executive producer and showrunner Kevin Abbott and executive producer Matt Berry.
When Schneider asked Allen how he was feeling after wrapping up the series, he said he has not fully recovered from how much he adored the world he created with the showrunner and writers.
“None of this happens without — you’ll hear it a million times — it’s such a great team,” Allen said. “I was extremely fortunate to have attracted such a team that put it together.”
Therefore, Allen said it’s been very hard saying goodbye to the show over the last three to four weeks.
“I said the other day that the characters are gone, and that made me very, very sad,” Allen said. “When I said to Ed in the last scene, I’m sure it’s in the cut, and he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mike,’ and I said, ‘Not in this world.'”
Ed, who is played by Elizondo, said the worst part of ending the show on a physical and emotional level during a pandemic was not being able to make physical contact.
“I’m a hugger if I like you; if I don’t, I punch you,” Elizondo said. “It’s very simple. No gray areas.”
While Abbott said ending the series has not quite sunk in for him yet, he acknowledged that he was glad they were able to present viewers with a proper ending, rather than concluding on a cliffhanger.
“It’s like asking somebody would you rather die suddenly or have a long, lingering illness,” Abbott said. “It’s never a good answer. But the thing that’s good about knowing, as we did when we started the season, that it would be the end, it allowed us to do a number of things, and one of those was sort of tie it together and say something at the end about what the family was.”
Watch the full conversation above.
