Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots

[Daniel Avery]

My theory is that we will be seeing a series of "callbacks" to characters that have been killed off as a sort of "best of" the series events. They're not really alive, just making other-worldly appearances to the characters that they worked with in the past.

Oscar's appearance---shortly after Candace "woke up"---is just the first of several. In the previews we saw Hannah with a young woman carrying a baby on the sidewalk in front of her townhouse---the spot where pregnant Melissa went *splat* a while back. Hannah was the only person who showed Melissa an ounce of compassion during her tenure on the show, so I'm curious if they plan to have her 'visit' Hannah. Oscar referred to others coming, so maybe we will see Candace's other dead 'pals' Quincy, Sr. and/or Warlock. It would not be as pleasant as Hannah/Melissa, that's for sure. A visit from Quincy, Jr. would be more heartbreaking for Candace than anything else, now that it appears she's going to have another child....but it might be too deep/emotional than HAHN tries to be. It seemed odd that David referred to long-dead Maggie and Extra-Crispy Erica when having his latest run-in with Veronica, so maybe David and/or Veronica will see them, as well. First and foremost, however---will they have Amanda make one last appearance? And who would she appear to? Katheryn? Jim? Maybe we'll finally learn if she committed suicide or if someone killed her.

Like I said, this would be a sort of otherworldly departure would be the type of thing some shows try to do when time's almost up, just to reward long-time viewers. Seeing those one last encounters helps put a period on the end of the sentence, so to speak, and gets viewers into the mood to say good-bye.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Once again, my theories only hit about two out of ten. Yes, Candace was dreaming (and the audience could figure out why) and yes, the two Quincys, Erica, and Warlock showed up (as well as one of Candace's victims I had forgotten). They even did a few flashbacks--a soap staple that TP basically NEVER uses. They did not stick around, however--the quickness of the "visit" sort of undercut the shock of the cliffhanger in the previous episode.

But that girl with the baby was not a hastily-recast Melissa with her ill-fated baby: she was a new character with a baby she claims is Benny's. Not exactly the kind of revelation one makes in the next-to-last episode of a long-running series. Even stranger is the prospect that she, the baby, and/or Hannah could now be the victim of more gunfire. Hannah already had one grandchild killed in front of her in a revenge-shooting, so are they trying to repeat history? It sounds mean, but I would be okay with Benny and the girl both ending up dead, with Hannah raising her insta-grandchild.

I hope Wyatt is finally dead. Too bad they could not have taken care of him sooner. The interaction with David's security guard was priceless, though. After all that Madison and Jeffery have been through, I was kind of surprised they were speaking as if they were just casual and not "in a relationship". They're the only healthy relationship in the entire show!

In a more meta sense, I am really dreading the final episode next week. Not just because I would prefer the show to continue, but because it is becoming increasingly clear that these episodes were written and filmed before they decided to end the series. I can't see them ending the show in a satisfactory manner in only one episode. There has been no noticeable effort to bring things to a conclusion, and even if they attempt this, taking one short episode to wrap up 6-8 stories would be insane. I cannot imagine it would be a satisfying conclusion; viewers would get whiplash. As we saw last night, they were still kicking off new stories (Benny's possible baby, as well as Jeffery's paternity questions) rather than trying to wrap up the existing ones. I can't help but believe they're going to leave us with more questions than answers (lots of cliffhangers), and I really hate it when shows do that.

 

[lbf522]

I would have preferred they kept Amanda and killed Wyatt. I am sick of his ungratefulness to his parents who have given him everything. Yes, let him remain dead.

 

[Daniel Avery]

As petulant and selfish as he is, Wyatt's main "offense" in the series is his total lack of character evolution. I cannot think of any other character on a soap I've watched that had so little growth. After the first season or so he was stuck in neutral, doing the same scenes over and over. It had to be irritating to the actor, and was of course more irritating for the audience.

I can't get on board with keeping Amanda around, though. I can't say for sure if the interpretation of the character by the actress was how Tyler Perry wanted her to behave, or if it was the actress's choices in how Amanda behaved, but the end product (what I saw onscreen) was bizarre and unrealistic. I want to believe they were directing the actress to behave as she did (in my effort to give the actress the benefit of the doubt), but at the time I felt the actress was out of her depth and did not fully grasp how to play schizophrenia, and instead played her as if she was high on drugs. Again, shows like this are a group effort so it can't simply be the fault of one person...it's unfortunate that when a character isn't working, the actor usually gets most of the criticism. On the other hand, if it turned out she was just not handling the part very well and they decided she was not going to improve, killing the character off in such a spectacular fashion could have been their way of making lemonade out of lemons.

 

[speeddmon]

Once again, my theories only hit about two out of ten. Yes, Candace was dreaming (and the audience could figure out why) and yes, the two Quincys, Erica, and Warlock showed up (as well as one of Candace's victims I had forgotten). They even did a few flashbacks--a soap staple that TP basically NEVER uses. They did not stick around, however--the quickness of the "visit" sort of undercut the shock of the cliffhanger in the previous episode.

But that girl with the baby was not a hastily-recast Melissa with her ill-fated baby: she was a new character with a baby she claims is Benny's. Not exactly the kind of revelation one makes in the next-to-last episode of a long-running series. Even stranger is the prospect that she, the baby, and/or Hannah could now be the victim of more gunfire. Hannah already had one grandchild killed in front of her in a revenge-shooting, so are they trying to repeat history? It sounds mean, but I would be okay with Benny and the girl both ending up dead, with Hannah raising her insta-grandchild.

I hope Wyatt is finally dead. Too bad they could not have taken care of him sooner. The interaction with David's security guard was priceless, though. After all that Madison and Jeffery have been through, I was kind of surprised they were speaking as if they were just casual and not "in a relationship". They're the only healthy relationship in the entire show!

In a more meta sense, I am really dreading the final episode next week. Not just because I would prefer the show to continue, but because it is becoming increasingly clear that these episodes were written and filmed before they decided to end the series. I can't see them ending the show in a satisfactory manner in only one episode. There has been no noticeable effort to bring things to a conclusion, and even if they attempt this, taking one short episode to wrap up 6-8 stories would be insane. I cannot imagine it would be a satisfying conclusion; viewers would get whiplash. As we saw last night, they were still kicking off new stories (Benny's possible baby, as well as Jeffery's paternity questions) rather than trying to wrap up the existing ones. I can't help but believe they're going to leave us with more questions than answers (lots of cliffhangers), and I really hate it when shows do that.

Wow I didn't know next week is the last episode. I knew going in when they announced this season as the last that there was no way they were going to tie up the show in this one season. I don't even think a year has passed on this show although it has been 8 in real life. They have loose ends from the 1st season that never got resolved. The issue with this show and other shows written by Tyler is that there is no sense of time. It seems like we have to have or hear everyone's conversation from that entire day before we move on. I feel like each episode takes place in a day or half a day and it contains every conversation that person has had that day with someone else. I'm surprised BET or BET+ didn't jump at the chance to renew with Tyler's other shows on there. Would love a mini series or something after to truly close out the show. I'm guessing contracts are up and it's too costly to renew or people have moved on to other things. It's truly Tyler's own fault as he should have tied up a lot of these storylines years ago instead of adding more characters and subplots without closing any.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Time was indeed....problematic. Amanda killed herself in the mansion late one night, but five episodes pass before anyone (Hannah) finds her the next morning. Melissa was pregnant for what seemed like two years, but wasn't even showing when she died. And of course Charles won the election nearly four years ago, and has been waiting all this time to be inaugurated. I recall when Charles met Katheryn in the hospital he asked if she had voted for him. She said something like "No, I was with her," a reference to Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan from 2016. In HAHN land he ran for President in 2016. Yet here it is 2021 and he still hasn't taken office!

In daytime soaps there is a joking reference to "Month-Days," (Mondays) situations like this one where one day of the characters' lives might unfold over many, many days of episodes. TP certainly knows what a Month-Day is. The inability to properly sequence time in one's scripts is a failing that creates these glacially-paced plots that never fully resolve. That is part of the reason I was saying we would likely not have some huge, fast-moving resolution of all the dangling plot ends, since "fast" is not something HAHN does.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I guess we will see how it all goes down...tonight. I guess they could have Savannah get hit with a meteor and wipe everyone out in the final scene. As the meteor approaches and lights up the night sky, Veronica will still be out in David's driveway, yelling obscenities at him and insulting Jeffery's manhood right up the very end.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Wow....they really did it!

I hate it and love it in equal parts.

I'll have to think on this for a while before I say anything else. But one thing's for certain: it's worth seeing.

 

[Brian Kinney]

This is not rewarding the long-time viewers. It's the revenge of Tyler Perry's ego for the cancellation (he's the Sandy Malone of TV writer hacks! ). The Youngs deserved better and having the Malones and Tanner win in the end is so cruel. Poor Madison ! I'll never watch another series by Tyler Perry in my life. He's worse than Katzman and the Shapiros combined! I hate it and pretend last week's episode is the series finale.

Update:
Many hours later and I'm still furious. But I liked how Hanna completely lost it in the end after she drove over Jim - as a final scene to a tragedy that was more fitting than anything else in this episode. While some killings were utterly violent and drawn out too much for me (Katheryn and Candace) the one I most hoped for was a letdown: Veronica shot outside in the dark by those random recurring characters... Was this season only set in the night? Hanna mentioned it was two months ago she moved into the house Katheryn gave her - a rare acknowledgment of time, if I could remember in which season the move happened... Obviously no reunions possible. Now I wish I hadn't asked for more. In my memory the show ends with last week's scene where Jeffrey and Madison talked about their relationship and seemed to be relaxed. After that everything is Candace's continued nightmare that started with the dead people.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Actually, Hannah referred to having moved in "a few months ago" in the way all soap characters use this term when the writers do not want to pin down the passage of "real" time. Yes, "a few" can be defined as a measured amount, but in TV dialogue it's purposely vague. Similarly, soap characters will use "it happened so long ago" or "it was a while back" rather than pinpointing a date for obvious reasons. After watching them tiptoe around dates and time-passage issues for the entire series, I was not surprised she could not come up with an exact date. If someone crashed their car into my house (which was the reason Hannah needed a place to live), the date of such an event would be burned into my mind, but then such stuff happened to her so regularly that she might not remember it as readily.

Speaking of Miss Hannah, I keep hearing people characterize her as having lost her mind in the final moments, that she was insane or something. Yes, it was an ugly-cry for the ages, but I just thought she was incredibly upset, what with having seen Candace dead and having to kill Jim or be killed. I thought she was just sobbing and devastated, not "snapped". Heck, all that stuff had happened at the mansion and she didn't even know that Benny and Katheryn were also dead. But if she is indeed just momentarily overwhelmed and will recover, she obviously ends up not only with the fortune but a grandchild to watch grow up as consolation prizes.

I recall when TP announced that season eight would be the last, it was stated as if he had chosen to end it--that between his new deal with Viacom/BET and his other enterprises (films, etc.) he thought it was time to end HAHN. I didn't think it was "cancelled," per se, since I'm sure OWN would love to have their highest-rated show as long as TP was willing to provide it. Whatever the case, I thought at the time (when they said there would be an eight-episode, final season) that it would be awesome if they adopted a sort of "Shakespearean tragedy" closing, where so many of his plays ended with virtually all the characters ending up dead. HAHN was spawned by a play TP wrote, so ending the series in the manner of a Shakespearean tragedy would make some sense. Don't get me wrong--I am NOT comparing this to Shakespeare! I simply thought it would be appropriate, since it's the kind of stuff only TP would have the nerve to do. But it might be a situation of "Be careful what you wish for". In this very thread, I tried my hand at killing everybody off (post #220) and though I would not have expected to predict what we just saw happen, there are some parallels.

Funny how even back in January we were all in agreement that TP would screw this up. The source of this dissatisfaction, I think, is how they took eight already-written and filmed episodes, then tried to edit a limited amount of additional material (new scenes) into them to wrap things up. I cannot come up with any other explanation for why these episodes (even up to the seventh) were so leisurely and casual, and everything was so amped up and insane in the final episode. In the seventh episode the front of Hannah's townhouse was sprayed with bullets. In the next episode, Hannah and Candace had that major final scene together on the front steps without a single bullet hole or stray mark on the front of the house, and the glass in the windows intact. The anti-climactic way Veronica was shot outside her house, without the viewer even getting to see her reacting to finally getting her comeuppance, gives the idea that the scene was filmed previously to be used as a fake-out with Laura actually being killed by accident. But of course Laura and her hottie husband were not even mentioned or seen. Actually, many characters were left unseen and their stories not wrapped up, which tells me their scenes had to be edited out to make room for the "new material", or their stories were going to be carried over into the hypothetical ninth season. For example, we never learned if Colby lived or died after getting beaten up in the fifth or sixth episode. It's unfortunate that TP could not have simply tossed out the (completed) final four or five episodes and gotten the cast back together to film a better-planned series-ending plot arc. Kill them all off in more measured units, not all in one episode, and take time to tie up various loose ends that had been ignored for so long. Perhaps the actors simply were not available. Maybe the facilities (sets, studio space) were already being used for other projects. Whatever the case, I really, really wish they had done more to re-fashion these final episodes into a proper series finale, because it just feels....slapped together.

There will be a two-part "cast reunion" special airing in their regular time slot next Tuesday, so I'm hoping some questions will be answered about why the show ended in such a thoughtless manner. It's not assured, though---it might just be a "favorite scenes"/"who's your favorite character" type event where the audience doesn't ask any hard questions. From the look of the clips in the commercial, it had already been taped before the final episode aired, so no one would likely stand up and say "What the hell was THAT???"

 

[speeddmon]

Very unsatisfying ending. My take is that had the show continued only Wyatt would have died and everyone else would have survived their "deaths". It obviously wasn't Veronica who was killed, otherwise there definitely would've been a close up to her murder like every body else. Plus, she was inquisitive when the guy wanted his money now and stated she should watch out. If the show was canceled or Tyler wanted to end it he should have written it WAAAYYY better than that. I guess now it's just "The Oval" for me as I can't stand "Ruthless". His shows need better pacing and time awareness for sure. Honestly instead of that 8 episode mess he could've just shown the last episode as the finale and called it a day. It was a waste of 8 weeks.

 

[speeddmon]

This is not rewarding the long-time viewers. It's the revenge of Tyler Perry's ego for the cancellation (he's the Sandy Malone of TV writer hacks! ). The Youngs deserved better and having the Malones and Tanner win in the end is so cruel. Poor Madison ! I'll never watch another series by Tyler Perry in my life. He's worse than Katzman and the Shapiros combined! I hate it and pretend last week's episode is the series finale.

Update:
Many hours later and I'm still furious. But I liked how Hanna completely lost it in the end after she drove over Jim - as a final scene to a tragedy that was more fitting than anything else in this episode. While some killings were utterly violent and drawn out too much for me (Katheryn and Candace) the one I most hoped for was a letdown: Veronica shot outside in the dark by those random recurring characters... Was this season only set in the night? Hanna mentioned it was two months ago she moved into the house Katheryn gave her - a rare acknowledgment of time, if I could remember in which season the move happened... Obviously no reunions possible. Now I wish I hadn't asked for more. In my memory the show ends with last week's scene where Jeffrey and Madison talked about their relationship and seemed to be relaxed. After that everything is Candace's continued nightmare that started with the dead people.

Maybe this was his idea of taking a bite out of Dallas and having everything be a dream for Candace had the show continued. I doubt that OWN or even Tyler Perry himself with all that money would not or could not be able to given a mini series or 2 hour movie to wrap everything up nicely. It's like the series finale of "How I Met Your Mother" all over again. Building up the final season only to deliver on a sour note.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I've not watched any other Tyler Perry shows with any regularity*, so I did not know until I read other commentary on this finale that apparently this is a common failing of his shows---a lousy ending.

* The only other one I sampled---but could not stick with---was Too Close To Home, which aired on TLC rather than OWN. Try though I might, I could not stick with it despite one breathtaking reason to tune in:

Spoiler

Instagram model-turned actor Brock O'Hurn....so yummy!

 

[speeddmon]

I've not watched any other Tyler Perry shows with any regularity*, so I did not know until I read other commentary on this finale that apparently this is a common failing of his shows---a lousy ending.

* The only other one I sampled---but could not stick with---was Too Close To Home, which aired on TLC rather than OWN. Try though I might, I could not stick with it despite one breathtaking reason to tune in:

Spoiler

View attachment 28852Instagram model-turned actor Brock O'Hurn....so yummy!

Yeah Tyler sure knows how to pick the guys for his shows hint hint

 

[Daniel Avery]

They've filmed a two-part "cast reunion" to air for the next two Tuesdays, but I'm unsure of when it was filmed. Ads for the special had footage of the cast (minus John Schneider) onstage with an Oprah-style moderator and audience. The ads were airing before the finale aired, which leads me to think it was shot a few weeks earlier (owing to time needed for editing/post-production). If so, it will have a very different audience. Reactions to the finale were almost universal disappointment among fans of the show, but up to that point the show enjoyed a small but loyal fandom. An audience from three weeks ago, for example would have a much different temperament than an audience from three DAYS ago. I could see rotten vegetables being thrown. And yet, if it was filmed three weeks ago it will feel sort of artificial, since all the audience members will be gushing about looking forward to seeing how it all ends when the home viewer knows these people's excitement will be dampened later on. Also, if it was filmed before the finale aired, it would be funny to see some of the cast members try to be low-key while tempering the expectations of the audience, since they might know what is about to air and know it won't go over well. Then again, a lot of the material in the finale that was seemingly added in at the last minute must have been done with a combination of stand-ins, stunt people, and some limited re-shoots with the actors--so the actors might actually not have known just how it would be edited and 'sweetened' with material filmed when they weren't even there. So it will be interesting to know just how much the actors knew about how it would turn out.

Feelings on the finale aside, I hope they will enlighten us a bit more about how they filmed the show. How long ago was the series wrapped? Was the series completed during Covid lockdowns? I've heard very interesting stories of how they worked around this, and how quickly they completed batches of episodes. In the ads for the special, Aaron O'Connell appeared to have a ponytail, so enough time has passed for him to grow his hair out. I assume Schneider was unavailable due to having some acting job elsewhere, which is a pity because I would love to hear how he felt getting to play such a hard-core jerk (against his image).

 

[Daniel Avery]

Live blogging the reunion special, part one:

Present: Tika Sumpter, Tyler Lepley, Crystal Fox, Aaron O'Connell, Angela Robinson, Gavin Houston, Peter Parros, and Renee Lawless.
Absent: John Schneider's absence is mentioned, but of course several supporting players worthy of being invited are missing. I guess having any more actors onstage would have been unmanageable.

Holy crap! It's been two whole YEARS since they filmed the finale material. They've apparently filmed this special the night of the finale, since the audience reacts to the discussions of the events as if they know what happened. Or perhaps they screened the finale episode for them before it aired on OWN? No one in the audience acts especially upset about the events so far---mostly laughing/tickled over how Hanna ran over Jim. All Hail The Conquering Hero(ine)! On second thought, if they had just screened that episode for this audience, they'd all be sitting there with their jaws on the floor the way I did, so I have no idea of the timeline.

The actors are seated in a quasi-socially-distant way, but the audience is sitting closely together like a pre-Covid Oprah audience. Hmmm...

They have a host in the studio (Egypt Sherrod), but Oprah is sort of hanging over the proceedings (on a giant screen over the stage) and introducing clip packages for the characters. There is a pretty good selection of clips from throughout the series , even some from the finale episode, included.

Renee (to Aaron): "So there you are, walking down the stairs half-naked...and I have to play his mother, right? But I'm there just....." [looking with wide eyes, head tilting] She seems like a fun lady to hang out with.

Jim: "Why would you have pain medication in this house?"
Katheryn: "Because I'm married to a pain in the ass."

Renee apparently has a "Katheryn voice," much deeper and deliberate than Renee's usual voice. Which is actually a good choice for the actress.

The role of Benny Young was Tyler Lepley's first-ever acting job.

They seem to have a tightly-planned event here---very little spontaneity in the discussions, and unless an actor is being spoken to/about, he/she doesn't say anything. They're sitting and listening politely as others talk about Candace, Wyatt, Jeffrey, etc. in each segment, not interjecting comments to make it feel more like a round-table discussion. Peter Parros/David didn't even say much when his character was being talked about.

When David tried to drown Veronica in the pool, Angela Robinson actually thought she was being written out. TP saw her crying and asked why. She thought she was a "goner". TP said "I'll tell you when you can cry." So only then did Robinson know Veronica would survive.

They had segments/short discussions on all the main characters except Jim---which you'd think he would merit discussion even if Schneider could not make it. So that's kind of odd. Jim featured in many of the clips, so it's not like JS refused to appear and vetoed the use of his image.

In the sneak peek for next week:
---everyone seems to be crying.

 

[Brian Kinney]

Holy crap! It's been two whole YEARS since they filmed the finale material.

We always wondered how much in advance they were filming. Sherlock @Daniel Avery , may I be your Watson? Now some hints make sense:

In June 2017 the second half of the fourth season aired according to Wikipedia. But I was a bit confused about an interview with Gavin Houston, published in June 2017.

We did forty-four episodes in about twenty-seven or twenty-eight actual shoot days. We had two and a half months, but the actual shoot days were twenty-seven. We were shooting scenes from multiple episodes all at once. (...)

I think now after doing our sixth season we definitely know our characters (...)

I’m in the mindset of the last forty-four episodes that we shot.

Season 5 is the only season that had 44 episodes, it aired January 2018 to Mach 2019. Season 6 had just 9 episodes (May to June, 2019) but maybe he referenced to both seasons, 5 and 6?

In another interview in June 2018 Gavin Houston said:

It’s truly a blessing to work with this ensemble. And after 7 seasons, its just like family.

According to Wiki Season 7 aired between January and October 2020 . The two-year gap between filming and broadcast is real!

And then there was the interview in May 2019, when the sixth season aired (May-July 2019) with Houston:

For six seasons and counting, media mogul Tyler Perry has put his gift for crowd-pleasing melodrama to use crafting OWN’s hit primetime soap The Haves and Have Nots.

The show is in good enough shape after six seasons that seasons seven and eight are already in the can, with season nine set to shoot. While Houston prepares for another season of soapy shenanigans, and looks forward to pursuing a film career, he’s proud of the work he and his castmates continue to do on OWN.

“In two weeks we’re going back for season 9. We’re like the NCIS of melodrama (...)”

Maybe the already produced season 8 and about-to-shoot 9 in May 2019 were combined to split Season 8 with crispy fondued Justin as a cliffhanger (it was dramatic enough). But it seems they must have filmed the rest in the summer or fall of 2019? So there was no Corona for them. It only looked a bit like it because of the filming process described in the first quote of the actor. And Tyler Perry got the cancellation news from OWN weeks or months before the public knew? Enough time to wrap it up and have a reunion special before Covid lockdowns?

 

[Daniel Avery]

Maybe I missed the confirmation, but I've never believed OWN "cancelled" HAHN. Oprah and TP are BFFs and the show usually finished as the highest-rated show on the network, leading me to believe that the show would not end unless TP decided he no longer wanted to produce it. I know others (Discovery Networks honchos) have some say in whether the show continues to air, but would they really cancel the highest-rated show on the channel? I have operated under the assumption that Perry decided to end it because he was so busy and had all that stuff in development with Viacom (BET) that he simply did not have time to devote to HAHN any more.
And since two freakin' YEARS has passed since the cast was together and doing new material, it would make sense that some of them might have moved on to other projects.

I recall John Schneider's acrimonious divorce several years ago, where his wife took him to the cleaners. I remember thinking Well, at least he has the HAHN salary coming in to keep him from poverty. Now I wonder if the divorce was finalized after the series wrapped. Maybe his absence from the reunion might be because the ex-wife sent him to debtors' prison. I also recall how long it was after Tika Sumpter had her baby before they had to start disguising her waistline on screen--like maybe two years later. It's all rather mind-blowing that they could hold onto this material for so long before airing it.

 

[Brian Kinney]

John Schneider was divorced in 2014 and had to spend only a few hours of the sentenced three days in prison. But that was in 2018. However he also had to complete 240 hours of community service. Maybe that collided?

 

[Daniel Avery]

I was joking about debtors prison. Apparently he had this production company that he had to sell off, but the people who bought the facility were friends of his and now employ him. So he might be busy working there. I don't think it was some kind of planned boycott or anything.