Happy's Place Boss Teases Season 3 Plans: More #Bemmett, More Jane Lynch... And More Of Steve Howey And JoAnna Garcia?

NBC's "Happy's Place" ended Season 2 by pouring salt on old wounds... and complicating Bobbie's path forward.

The Season 2 finale saw sisters Bobbie (Reba McEntire) and Isabella (Belissa Escobedo) see a shrink (played by "Modern Family" vet Eric Stonestreet). The session dredged up dormant feelings for Bobbie, including lingering resentment toward her late father, Happy, for keeping half-sister Isabella a secret from her.

Bobbie also came to realize that she's no longer upset with ex-boyfriend Emmett (Rex Linn) for protecting Happy's secret, which is why she ended their relationship in the first place. But Emmett, fresh off breaking Monica's heart, insisted he was done putting himself out there — and that was Bobbie's cue to give him space, rather than tell him she wanted another shot at their relationship.

Heading into Season 3, that leaves plenty to mine before Bobbie and Emmett inevitably find their way back to each other. As Bobbie continues to unpack her feelings about Happy, the door also remains open for Justina Machado to reprise her Season 1 role as Isabella's mother, Maritza, and further explore the affair that gave Bobbie a half-sister. And lest we forget, Gabby (Melissa Peterman) recently agreed to move in with her acid-tongued mother, Valerie (played by recently introduced guest star Jane Lynch), and that story has only just begun.

Below, showrunner Kevin Abbott unpacks Season 2 at large and previews what's ahead in Season 3.

TVLINE | You've said before that Bobbie and Emmett's relationship progressed faster than you expected. Once you introduced that ticking clock in Season 2 with Emmett's secret about Isabella, did it free you up to let them become a couple earlier, knowing it wasn't going to stick and that the bigger picture is still a slow burn?
Yes, that's exactly right. Once that happened, and we knew about the secret, we knew we were going to have to deal with it, so we wanted to let them have some fun for a while, go to the good side of relationships because we knew... we were going to blow it up. The timeline on this relationship has been a little bit different than I kind of envisioned it from the very beginning, but I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm pretty happy with where we're going, I think.

TVLINE | Emmett's secret and the fallout from it gave you a clear beginning, middle, and end for the season — something multi-cams don't often have. Did having those goalposts feel more like a creative challenge or a reward?
I always arc out the characters before we start the season. I really like that. I call it fencing the yard for the writers so that they know there are going to be areas that we can hit... we're going to want to do this or that. The old "Reba" show, when I came in to take it over in the second season, I pitched to Reba I'd like to have the end of the season be Kyra wants to move out, and that meant that we could get a bunch of stories out of that — showing Kyra was the low man on the totem pole, that she had to get closer to Barbara Jean, and all that other stuff. That kind of thing works well for me. I like to be able to explore the small story. So if we know we're going somewhere with a big pivot, we can always build towards that. 

Last season was a challenge just because we only had the [initial] 13 [episode order]... and we got the [back] five so late that it was much harder to actually build to the places that I wanted to get to. So this season was much better that way.

TVLINE | You start the season with Bobbie and Emmett together, break them apart at midseason, and by the finale, she's ready to forgive — only for him to pull back after ending things with Monica. Is Season 3 the slow road back to each other, or are you playing an even longer game?
I've got a couple of ways to go, and I'm weighing, number one, which do I think is the most interesting, but number two, what's going to yield us the most interesting stories. I'd like to not think of it in terms of just an arc. If the dynamics we're playing with these characters are going to change, then that's a big swing for me. That's a big move.

I want to make certain that we're not wasting anything, and that it's going to give us something on both sides of it, leading up to and then on the switch in the dynamic. So I haven't quite decided yet, but it's going to be, once again... I mean, Reba's the star, and I do enjoy those two, and I enjoy both sides of their relationship. So I'd like to keep exploring it in different ways. In a month or so, I will have to make a decision. But the problem is I've got a couple of things I really like, but they don't line up, so I'm going to have to make a choice. When I get the writers together, I'll kick it around a bit, and that'll usually lead us somewhere. But yeah, I'm not sure where it's going to go yet, but it's going to still be a big part of the show. We're not putting it out there just to leave it alone.

TVLINE | If Bobbie had explicitly asked for another chance, do you think Emmett would have been open to it in that moment? Or was he already too closed off, regardless of how she approached him?
I think if I were writing that story, Emmett would still say he needed time. He's a guy who has kept his emotions close to his chest his whole life. He's been a bit closed off. He finally opened himself up and got burned pretty bad, and in a way that he can justifiably say, "I don't think I deserve this. I don't think I deserve being punished and having my heart broken for this. If I had to do it over again, I'd do the exact same thing." There was no real option, no choice for him. So yeah, I think when Emmett says, "i broke that girl's heart the way you broke mine," it builds up. The fact that Bobbie broke his heart is something that would have to be won back. It's not the love, it's the trust. It's the willingness to put yourself out there that I think Emmett is reacting to.

TVLINE | Both Bobbie and Isabella have now forgiven Emmett for keeping Happy's secret, but the finale introduces a new thread: Bobbie's complicated feelings toward Happy. Her father is gone, and he took that secret to his grave. How much of her journey going forward is about reckoning with that?
I'm glad you picked up on that. That was something I was dissatisfied with from the first season. I felt like we got off that complication way too soon. I think it's a much bigger complication than we gave real estate to, and I'd like to take it much like I'm taking the Isabella relationship. 

We bonded [Bobbie and Isabella] pretty quickly. There was supposed to be a lot more tension, and I made the choice — I felt like the audience was always going to be on Bobbie's side, and therefore they were not being drawn to Isabella in the way that I wanted them to, so I got the two of them together. Now, I'm looking at that as the honeymoon phase. This season will be the marriage, where you don't get let go of those little things as easily. 

I think it's the same thing with Bobbie and her dad. I think there's a lot more to explore when you take [a closer look at] somebody she has put on a pedestal. Happy had many great qualities, but he was a human being. And I find it very interesting territory to explore: How do you deal with the heroes in your mind when they turn out — not to be villains, but not complete heroes either?

We're taking that character and making her reassess what she believes the world should be like, and who the people around her are. She has idealized Happy, and I think it's probably a healthy thing for her to not idealize him. You can love somebody who is flawed. They don't have to be perfect to love them. Love is about accepting people as they are. It's not fair to everybody else around her — specifically Emmett, or any other man she might meet, that they're being held up to that standard, because that standard isn't even true. Happy didn't meet that standard. So how do you deal with that feeling of betrayal, and how do you internalize it? He still was this wonderful father, he still did many great things... but he did this one thing. That doesn't make him terrible. You don't have to either completely reject him or completely support everything he did.

I think that journey is really interesting, and it's not all one episode. In my mind, she buried it pretty quickly. She used the arrival of Isabella in her life to go, "OK, I've got this other thing to love, and now I'm not looking at that thing." We're going to look at that thing.

TVLINE | Another lingering thread that dates back to Season 1: the origins of Happy's relationship with Isabella's mother Maritza. Bobbie respected her wishes not to dig deeper, but the question still lingers. You'd talked about possibly exploring that this season — did you ultimately decide to hold off, or did you come to feel that it's a story that doesn't necessarily need to be told?
We held off for very, very banal reasons, which is [Justina Machado, who plays Maritza] was on Broadway, so we didn't have access to her. Next season, we'd love to have Jane Lynch back. Jane apparently shot a great pilot. We're waiting to see if that goes. But if she's available, I have big plans for that character. 

I love Jane, and I love the character, but we can only use her if she's available — much like Maritza. We have several stories with Maritza we'd like to explore, and it really just comes down to, "Do we have the actress when we can shoot the episode?"

TVLINE | Though I have to imagine with Jane, if it's an NBC show she's doing, that'll make things a little easier, especially if you guys are sharing a night.
That is our hope — that if she gets on that, they'll be on the stage next to us. And Jane, God love her, works like a dog. She can come in, and we'll take whatever we can get. I've got at least three stories top of my head I'd love to do with that character that I think are really fun. Because I also think that it's not necessarily about Valerie. It's really about Gabby. That's another area for the Gabby character to have some growth. Exploring that painful relationship is also very interesting to me. How do you heal that kind of a rift?

I could do a lot with Jane. The character is based on my mother-in-law, Valerie, and it's such a rich character. All of our characters love each other and are nice and try to do the right thing, even if they get at odds. It's nice to have a villain — somebody who isn't necessarily trying to do the right thing. They're just trying to do what's right for them. That was fun. It gave us a different color to put in the show, a different kind of spin, a feeling... so yeah, I'm kind of on pins and needles waiting to see. She's my Louie De Palma. I really enjoy having that character stir the pot, because it can get things going with everybody.

TVLINE | I was talking to Melissa about this a few weeks ago. You guys had been playing the long game with the "Is Gabby going to have a baby?" storyline, and as I watched the first half of Season 2 and saw you planting those breadcrumbs with her mother, I started to wonder if, in the writers' room, you realized that more than wanting a baby, this was really about unresolved issues with her mom...
Exactly. As we started down that road, we began to game-plan it out. What happens if she has a baby? Well, what if we bring her mom in to help? That means she has to heal that relationship... and that yielded some thoughts and stories, and we realized this was a better story. This was a better arc. I've seen a lot of pregnancy stories. You can always try to find an interesting take, but I hadn't seen that relationship explored as much. At a certain point, it became, I don't want to wait on this. I want to jump into it. And then when we saw Val, when we saw Jane, it was just like, "Yeah, that was the right decision." You pretty much nailed exactly what happened as we were breaking everything out. 

At the end of the day, I also didn't want to limit the Gabby character. I felt like that might tame her and take some of the fun out of her. Suddenly, if you're a mother, you can't be quite as irresponsible or spontaneous, and I wanted to keep that. I really want to make certain that Gabby isn't just superficial. I want to show why she acts the way she does, because there's a lot of depth to that character. And the mother character can bring that out much more than a baby could have.

TVLINE | You've now brought in the "big three" from "Reba" — Steve Howey, Christopher Rich, and JoAnna Garcia Swisher. There are still plenty of familiar faces from that series, as well as your other show, "Last Man Standing," who could pop up. Who's at the top of your Season 3 wish list?
Actually, not anybody from "Reba" or "Last Man Standing." We got word — I don't know if it's still true, but I hope so — that Octavia Spencer wanted to do the show.

Much like what I did with Eric Stonestreet — originally, that role was going to be Michael Bublé. He'd said he wanted to do the show, and he works with Reba on "The Voice." ... but then he had visa issues and couldn't do it, so we scrambled. The network and studio liked the idea of stunt casting, and Eric had said he was interested. I called him and said, "I've got to be honest, this is not a role that"s going to make you leap out of your seat." But we sat and talked for about a half hour, kicked around ideas, and basically came up with the character he ended up playing.

That's what I'd want to do with Octavia — sit down and say, "Here's what we think could be interesting, but what do you want to do?" I love collaborating and taking things in unexpected places. That would be something I'd really love to do.

I'd have Steve Howey back, too, but he landed on "High Potential."

TVLINE | That was a one-season deal...
Was it a one season deal? Wow... I'd love to bring back JoAnna, too. She was great.