Nearly 25 years after Reba Hart’s husband Brock left her for his dental hygienist, “Happy’s Place” delivered a full-circle moment — with an assist from JoAnna Garcia Swisher.
Reba McEntire’s former sitcom daughter is the latest “Reba” alum — following Steve Howey and Christopher Rich — to reunite with McEntire and Melissa Peterman on their current NBC comedy, guest-starring as Kenzie, an actress and influencer hired to play Bobbie in a series of social media promos, delivering a spot-on Reba impression in the process.
At one point, Bobbie notes that Kenzie could pass for her daughter — perhaps even more convincingly than Swisher did during the “Reba” days, now that she’s sporting the same signature red hair as her TV mom. But the biggest Easter egg comes when Kenzie casually offers Bobbie some relationship advice, noting that “my parents got divorced. My dad left my mom for his dental hygienist.” The audience loses it — as does McEntire, who briefly breaks character before composing herself long enough to observe that it “sounds like a richly comedic situation.”
Reuniting With JoAnna Garcia Swisher
TVLine recently caught up with Melissa Peterman (watch the full interview above), who reflected on Swisher’s appearance — and the surreal, “very meta” dynamic of watching her longtime co-star impersonate McEntire.
“It was delightful,” she says. “JoAnna Garcia is very funny… She’s a very good mimic and she’s really sharp. It was hilarious.”
Swisher’s performance, Peterman notes, tapped into a comedic side longtime fans may already know well, but that the “Sweet Magnolias” star doesn’t always get to show off.
“She’s done drama, she produces stuff, she’s so smart,” Peterman says. “But she’s wickedly funny. Her comedic timing is great. So it was really fun.”
The “Reba” reunion also continued off screen… and involved a certain missing castmate.
“We crank-called Steve Howey a lot,” Peterman reveals. “The three of us, when we were together on set, we would definitely leave messages for him. We were taking a lot of photos and sending to him.”
On screen, the episode leans into the layered comedy of the situation: Kenzie modeling herself after Bobbie, while Gabby tries to emulate Kenzie — who herself is essentially doing a Reba impression.
“It’s very meta, you know? Very fun,” Peterman says. “Just the three of us trying to mimic each other could have gone on for a while, and it did in rehearsal a lot.”
Jane Lynch Enters the Picture
Swisher isn’t the only high-profile guest star visiting “Happy’s Place” in Season 2. After months of secrecy, Peterman can finally talk about another major addition to the cast: Jane Lynch, who makes her debut as Gabby’s oft-mentioned mother Valerie in Episode 13 (airing Friday, March 20).
“It was so hard not to just scream it at every moment,” Peterman recalls, having had to refrain from sharing the casting news with TVLine during our last interview in November. “Even going to the dry cleaners when I knew it, I wanted to be like, ‘I’m here to pick up my sweater. Jane Lynch is going to play my mom!'”
Getting to act opposite Lynch turned out to be everything Peterman hoped for.
“[It was] everything as an actor I could have wanted and everything as a human I could have wanted,” she says. “There are days that you come home, like, ‘Oh, that was one of my favorite days as an actor.’ I remember watching ‘Best in Show,’ watching her, and going, ‘These are my people. I want to know her.’ And then watching her in ‘Glee’… she’s just brilliantly smart.”
From a storytelling standpoint, Lynch also brought the exact presence the show needed.
“We needed somebody formidable. We’ve talked about Gabby’s mom and she lives large in Gabby’s mind,” Peterman says, so whoever played her had to “have that gravitas walking in a room. And Jane Lynch has it…. She was so generous with me, and we immediately had such great chemistry.”
And given how the story plays out, Peterman suggests that Lynch could return in Season 3. In fact, she’s already filmed a second episode, which airs Friday, April 10.
