Sweet Magnolias Showrunner Talks Season 4 Burning Questions: Who Died?

Grab your margaritas and pour one out, because Sweet Magnolias showrunner Sheryl J. Anderson is breaking down the Netflix hit’s most explosive season yet.

After premiering in 2020, Sweet Magnolias spent three seasons covering a mere few months’ time for the citizens of small town Serenity, South Carolina. That all changed with the release of season 4 — which hit Netflix on Thursday, February 6 — when viewers caught up with BFFs Maddie (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Helen (Heather Headley) and Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott) more than one year after the events of season 3 came to a close.

“It freed up how we were telling our stories,” Anderson exclusively told Us Weekly of the choice to leap ahead for the show’s fourth season. “There are 34 minutes between season 1 and season 2 and two hours and 34 minutes between season 2 and season 3. We talked a long time about how big a jump we would take, but we wanted to [do something different].”

Warning: spoilers below for season 4 of Sweet Magnolias. 

Time moving forward, of course, meant big changes happening off screen for the Magnolias and their inner circles: Maddie and Cal (Justin Bruening) went and got engaged, Helen and Eric (Dion Johnstone) found new love – and not with each other — and Dana Sue gave up active control of her restaurant, Sullivan’s, in lieu of teaching students how to cook. Annie (Anneliese Judge), meanwhile, began her senior year of high school while Ty (Carson Rowland) explored his future as a musician.

Fans only have brief moments to catch up with what’s evolved for the characters off screen, however, before the new season jumps into a slew of new twists by the end of episode 1.

“Episode 1 is full of surprises,” Anderson teased. “We wanted to surprise the audience and allow them to recalibrate along with us as we are continuing this journey. We just thought it was interesting and reset some of the story lines in a way that we could come into them more vigorously.”

Season 4 is certainly a vigorous season —  one that takes off running and doesn’t stop until the credits roll in the finale. Keep scrolling for Anderson’s break down all of season 4’s biggest bombshells:

Why Did They ‘Kill Bill’?

It’s revealed early on in season 4 that Bill (Chris Klein) died of a heart attack while living in Texas with his parents and new girlfriend, Kathy (Wynn Everett). When asked why Bill’s death was necessary in moving the story forward, the showrunner pointed out how connected Bill was to Serenity as the ex-husband of Maddie, father of Kyle (Logan Allen), Ty and Katie (Ella Grace Helton), ex-fiancé of Noreen (Jamie Lynn Spears), estranged father of Bex and biological father of Issac (Chris Medlin). Whew!

“I prefer to think of it as Bill’s untimely passing. Not that we killed off Bill,” Anderson quipped to Us before confessing there were “plenty of ‘Kill Bill’ jokes” on set. “But the reason [he died] is we were looking for a cataclysmic event that would strike everybody at the core of their being. And across his time in Serenity, [Bill] has been central, obviously to Maddie and the kids but also to the group of friends around them [and] to other people in town.”

Anderson noted that Bill and Kathy ultimately found their “happy conclusion” during the season 3 finale — when they sought forgiveness before leaving town indefinitely — leaving an open space for something “completely unexpected” to happen.

“We were also looking for a way to have our characters confront those really existential questions that erupt when the first person in your friend group passes,” she continued. “You know, it’s like, ‘Who am I? Could time run out for me tomorrow? And if it does, what’s my legacy? Have I spent my time wisely? Am I doing what I should be doing? Am I with the person I truly love? Bill was such a shock. What if another shock is coming? Should I change my life?’”

Anderson clarified, however, that the writers and the cast all “love” Klein as an actor, sharing that they were collectively ”so sorry to tell him, ‘We’re taking this direction, but we love you.’”

Why Did Maddie Keep Her Wedding a Secret From the Magnolias?

“We wanted to make it a family project,” Anderson explained to Us of Maddie hiding her wedding from her two best friends. “And Maddie shares with Dana Sue and Helen that she and Cal let the kids help them plan. So it was, ‘Let’s make it fun, let’s make it splashy, let’s make it so unusual that, you know, [we may] go on [for] many, many seasons and have many, many weddings, [but] there will never be a wedding like Cal and Maddie’s!’”

Cal nd Maddie tied the knot in a surprise ceremony on Halloween night during episode 2. While Maddie’s kids were let in on the secret, even Dana Sue and Helen are kept in the dark — a choice Anderson thought would cultivate an “interesting conversation for friends to have” after the deed is done.

While Dana Sue and Helen weren’t angry with Maddie, they did share their disappointment the following day. Garcia, for her part, called the experience a “big lesson” that Maddie needed to “learn.”

“Look, at the end of the day, if you need a body buried I would go to Maddie because she is gonna keep her lips sealed,” Garcia Fisher said, noting that she’s a lot like Maddie in that way. “Like, when people say, ‘I have that one person that I tell the secret to,’ well I hold secrets like a lockbox. I’m a lockbox secret girl.”

She continued, “I never realized that and I’ve always prided myself on that, but I’ve never realized that that could hurt people’s feelings. So when Helen said, ‘Yeah, you keep secrets but not from us.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I get it.’”

Garcia Fisher added that while she was “surprised” Maddie didn’t let her friends in on the planning, she also understood the decision. “It was like a fun surprise,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I would’ve felt really shafted as a friend. So I think they let [Maddie] off the hook a little easier than I would’ve. I would’ve been mad.”

Maddie’s second big secret of the season— that she knew Bill was Isaac’s biological father — felt like a secret she did need to keep. “There are grades,” Garcia Fisher argued, noting that some secrets “we just keep to ourselves,” even if it is “top tier gossip.”

Breaking Down the ‘Slap’ Heard Around Serenity

The tension between Bill’s mom, Bonnie, and Maddie reached a fever pitch in season 4 after Bonnie screamed at Ty the night of Bill’s funeral. When Maddie called Bonnie “vain” for her behavior, Bonnie attempted to slap Maddie across the face — but Maddie caught her wrist just in time.

According to Anderson, it was important Bonnie never actually made contact when going to hit Maddie. “From the original pitch of the moment there was not full contact, because this is Maddie taking control of the relationship,” she explained to Us. “Maddie tried so hard to be the daughter-in-law that Bonnie expected and therefore Bill expected. And it was a struggle from the get go.”

The moment, Anderson said, led to the “revelation” that Bonnie revealed before leaving Serenity — that Bill secretly stood up for his ex-wife while they were still married.

“We thought that spoke to the complexity of their marriage and how no matter how old we are, a lot of us are still trying to fulfill parental expectations,” Anderson told Us. “Some relationships can bear that and some can’t. But Bill’s a very particular kind of guy, and was raised [with someone saying], ‘You deserve whatever you want.’ So we just spent some time thinking about what kind of parents raise a kid that way. And that’s how we came up with Bonnie and [his dad] Trip.”

Why Was Now the Time for Ty and Annie?

After seasons of fans hoped childhood BFFs Ty and Annie would get together, the pair finally kissed and confessed their love during the first episode of season 4. Anderson explained that the pair getting together boiled down to what Ty’s bandmate Olivia (Tommi Rose) told him before heading out on tour.

“We’re gonna go out on the road, and if you continue to mess around and take her for granted, if you stay quiet and we come back and she’s with somebody else, it’s on you,” Anderson said. “And having recognized that he kind of blew it, and she started dating Jackson (Sam Ashby) [in season 2], the wheels start turning and he is like, ‘I better say something!’”

What Happened Between Ty and Annie During the Year Time Jump?

Anderson told Us that Ty and Annie were simply in a holding pattern for the year viewers didn’t see them on screen, focusing on their bond as friends.

“It’s,‘We’re just gonna be friends forever.’ So they weren’t pursuing each other,’” she said, before noting that them “holding hands” at the vow renewal during the season 3 finale was “a moment of mutual support” more than anything.

Will Ty and Annie Be Able to Make It Work?

While Ty and Annie started season 4 on cloud nine as a couple, things took a turn when Ty returned from tour in the finale, revealing that his band was asked to tour Europe for the summer and fall — and he wanted Annie to defer her acceptance to her dream college to go with him. Annie, for her part, declined the offer, telling Ty that they should be able to survive one year apart after taking 17 years to admit their love.

The pair end the season as one of the only cliffhangers — and Anderson told Us that Annie’s decision played into season 4’s overall theme.

“One of the great heartbreaks of being in love at that age is that you’re at different levels of emotional maturity and what seems like a clear path to him is not a clear path to her,” she explained. “And frankly, one of the things that we were touching on this season is how often women are expected to put aside their dreams. Annie, Dana Sue, Maddie, Helen — I mean, you know, the sacrifice is somehow supposed to come to us naturally. And that was one of the things that we wanted to explore.”

Anderson noted that Annie is such a “supportive” and “giving” character, so forcing her to “stand up against the guy she’s been in love with all her life and say, ‘I have my plans,’ we just thought was an important conversation for a couple of any age to have, but certainly at their age.”

As for Judge, she’s not sure if the duo will make it in the end —  but she hopes they will.

“I’m going to be really interested to see if we’re renewed for another season, which I’m crossing my fingers [we will be],” she said. “The cliffhanger, it’s there for me. I feel like I’m right alongside the viewers. Like, ‘Oh my gosh,  I don’t know what’s gonna happen.’ Like, I don’t know if Ty’s gonna realize that that was not the right way to approach that conversation. Because it came from a good place. He wanted her to go with him. He wanted to for the world with her. I get it, but it’s hard. It’s so hard. We’ll have to see.”

Are Kids in the Cards for Helen and Eric?

While season 4 began with Helen and Eric each respectively dating other people, the pair finally found their way back together during a hurricane — after a dripping wet Eric saved Helen from being crushed by a tree, of course. The twosome spent most of the season in bliss before Eric popped the question on Christmas Eve, but will the newly engaged couple fulfill Helen’s dreams of having children after her miscarriage, and Eric losing his wife and baby?

“I would love to have a season 5 to answer that question,” Anderson told Us with a laugh when asked if adoption may be in the cards for the couple. “But to where they are here in season 4, it’s really important for couples to have at least begun conversations on those big issues before they get engaged. I mean, ideally and certainly before they get married.”

Helen and Eric did have a “delicate” conversation “circling around” about possibly expanding their family in the penultimate episode of season 4, which Anderson said is “really interesting for Helen, who had already been struggling with fertility issues to expand the definition of what it would mean to have children.”

Can ‘Sweet Magnolias’ Go on With Maddie in NYC?

Despite finding massive success as a children’s book author during the time jump, season 4 concluded with Maddie accepting a marketing job at a publishing house in New York City. While she’s hesitant to leave, her family and friends encourage her to take the leap — and Garcia Fisher is in full agreement that getting out of Serenity is the right way to go.

“I think it’s important to get out of the bubble a little bit and test the waters,” she said. “And I think that’s sort of a whole part of Maddie’s journey. “She was living this one life for so long and doing it really capably, but it backfired, it blew up. And she really dedicated herself so wholeheartedly to be this wife and this mother and it’s not really all that noble. It was a huge lesson for her where she was like, ‘You know, I definitely sacrificed myself and who I was and experiencing great love and all of those kind of things.’”

Garcia Fisher called Maddie’s move a “cool angle to explore” for the character, especially since it hasn’t been that long since Bill and Maddie actually divorced.

“It feels like a long time because Sweet Magnolias has been around for a while. but when you really look at the timestamp of our show, it’s pretty rapid fire,” she said, adding, “I think it’s inevitable that she’s gotta get her groove back. And a part of that is reconnecting with her roots and the things that she’s good at and the things that she dedicated herself to at one point in her life. So I love the idea of it.”

But could Sweet Magnolias continue with Maddie in Manhattan? Garcia Fisher certainly thinks so. “I think that it’s safe to say that no matter where Maddie is, where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she told Us, adding, “I think it’d be really cool to see the Magnolias in Central Park strolling around like the Southern Sex and the City gals.”