‘All American’ Boss On That Shocking Death & The Collective Grief That Will Fuel The Remainder Of Season 5
14.02.2023 - 05:09
/ deadline.com
SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Season 5, Episode 11 of The CW’s All American.
The CW’s All American ended with an emotional twist on Monday, as the series said goodbye to one of its most beloved characters.
Head coach Billy Baker (played by Taye Diggs) died saving a student after a bus carrying him and the South Crenshaw High School football team crashed on its way back from a scouting combine.
In the final moments of the episode, his son Jordan (Michael Evans Behling), who was at the scene of the crash, tells his family that Billy didn’t survive.
Billy’s death will likely come as a shock for viewers, since the series has so far spared its main cast, even though many of them have previously been at death’s door. But showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll told Deadline that the decision for Diggs to exit the show came about organically before plans for Season 5 were made.
“At the beginning and end of every season, I have a conversation with the cast about the journey of their character, and it was in those conversations for Taye that we started talking about, ‘Is Billy’s journey on the show over? And if so, what would an exit look like?’ To me, there was only ever one exit for Billy if he was leaving, because the character would never leave after fighting so hard for his family,” she said.
Carroll spoke with Deadline about building Season 5 around Diggs’ exit and gave insight into how the remaining episodes will dive deeper into the shared grief of those mourning the loss, especially his family (both biological and chosen).
DEADLINE: I was pretty shocked to learn that this death was coming. Is this something you’d planned when you opened the writers room for Season 5?
NKECHI OKORO CARROLL: When I took over