Despite being canceled, the people behind Freeform's Good Trouble are telling fans what they had planned for the story of a potential Season 6.
The Fosters spin-off series ran for five seasons on the Disney-owned Freeform network from January 2019 to March 2024.
However, with the end of Season 5 also came the cancellation of the beloved TV drama, with Disney moving away from The Fosters universe after more than a decade of stories.
The Good Trouble Season 6 That Never Happened
Following the cancellation of the Freeform series Good Trouble, the show's creator addressed what she saw happening story-wise in a sixth season of the TV drama.
In a conversation with Variety, Good Trouble Showrunner Joanna Johnson revealed if Season 6 had happened, she "wanted to do messaging around the upcoming election:"
"I definitely wanted to do messaging around the upcoming election. We just threw a little bit in there in the dinner party scene, but I feel strongly that people have to vote for the best candidate, not always the perfect candidate. I am worried about young people being turned off by President Joe Biden because he’s older and because they may not think he’s done everything right, or done everything perfectly. He’s done a lot."
Looking at the 2024 candidates, she added, "I hate to see people get disillusioned" and not vote, so she would have wanted to bring that into the series in some form:
"I don’t think the Democrats message enough about how much he’s done, and how much he will continue to do. I hate to see people get disillusioned and say, 'Well, I don’t think there’s a candidate that I think is wonderful, so I’m not going to vote.'
I really, really, want young people to realize that nothing is perfect, and sometimes your vote for someone is important because you’re voting against something that is worse."
According to Johnson, the series getting axed came as a bit of a surprise, as the announcement was made after shooting had been completed.
So, Johnson and the team - who "had some savings from Season 5" went to the network to see if they could "shoot some more scenes" to turn the fifth season finale into the series closer (via Deadline):
"We had some savings from Season 5, and I said, 'Is there any way we could use that savings to shoot some more scenes so that we can…at least see a series finale and and a proper goodbye?' She really went to bat for us, and they let us do it. She just said it could be as long [we] wanted it to be. It was wonderful. So then we had to just wait for Maia Mitchell to be available, because she was in a movie. We didn’t have much time to post, because it airs on Tuesday. So a couple weeks ago, we shot it for two days."
She explained that some of the stories she was "trying to boot and cliff on for Season 6" were cut in the finale, as there would no longer be any more episodes, and instead focused on "properly say[ing] goodbye:"
"I opened up the the finale that we had, and I cut some some stories that we were trying to boot and cliff on for Season 6, because it didn’t make any sense anymore. I wrote these new scenes so that we could have that last family Coterie dinner and the final scene on the roof. It was just lovely, because everybody got to come back together — our wonderful cast and our wonderful crew — and have those two days to properly say goodbye."
On the series' expanded 90-minute finale and getting to rework it, Johnson told TVLine, she "really appreciate[d]" the network letting her go back to the show mere weeks before airing to provide proper closure:
"I really appreciate that from Disney and [network] and her and Craig, because they didn’t have to do that. That doesn’t happen very often. Once the show is already shot and in the can, they don’t usually let you open up the finale and shoot more scenes. So I was super grateful for that."
Why Was Good Trouble Canceled?
Following the end of Season 5, fans might be wondering what exactly happened for Good Trouble to be canceled after a successful five-year run.
This cancellation was a big move by Freeform's parent company Disney, as the studio abandons a universe it set up with The Fosters back in 2013.
However, some insight into what went into the decision has been revealed in the time since the cancellation announcement.
According to the series' showrunner Joanna Johnson, it had a lot to do with the strikes that dominated the entertainment industry in 2023 (via TVLine):
"The strikes were long and bruising. And all the networks and studios are scrambling because they’re losing money. They have to make cuts in different places. And Freeform was not part of the Spectrum cable deal, and so, they lost a lot of their viewers. So just a lot of things kind of happened."
This comes as Disney (and the entertainment industry as a whole) tightens its financial belt following rampant spending on content leading into and during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
A great correction has come for studios like Disney, and tough choices are having to be made.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has been thorough in his plan to get the Hollywood giant back on the right track after returning to the company's head position back in November 2022.
And sadly, shows like Good Trouble have had to hit the cutting room floor, as the studio aims to win shareholders back.
Good Trouble is now streaming on Hulu.
