Shamless has no plans to join the ever-growing list of TV shows cancelled, despite Emmy Rossum‘s Season 9 exit.
Speaking to THR, showrunner John Wells and star William H. Macy confirm that the Season 9 finale is not being written as the series ender, in fact, it sets up “more storytelling” for Season 10 and leaves the door open to Rossum’s return:
WELLS It’s painful, wonderful, exciting and a little frightening. We’re rewriting the end of this season. I’m rethinking episodes 13 and 14, so we can deal with Fiona leaving in a way that feels true to the show and also sets us up for more storytelling in the future. Everything that we’ll do with Fiona leaving and then hopefully returning at some point in the future — should Emmy choose to — will be based on that basic premise that these are damaged people who still really love each other and pull together to get through things.
MACY It’s sad, but people have been moving in and out, and they tend to come back. I can’t tell you how close these imaginary circumstances are to real life. It doesn’t feel like goodbye forever. Fiona’s got to come back. She’s going to leave clothes there!
On whether Shameless can match the UK original’s run of 11 seasons and 139 episodes, the duo suggest the show has another decade of stories left in the tank:
WELLS There’s no end of stories about maturing in your own family and the pull that families have on us. Placing that within the structure of people who are struggling economically and who have to depend upon each other to survive provides endless story material. It’s always a question of how long a cast is prepared to keep playing the characters. I could write this for another 10 years. The satirical underpinnings of this notion that there really is class in America is something that we could write about forever. Every day you pick up the paper and there are 10 other stories you could tell.
MACY I know there’s another 10 years of stories, and I’d love to see them. But when I think about acting them my back starts to hurt a little bit. (Laughs.) I know I want to do another season or two, and after that we shall see.
Are you sad about Rossum’s departure? Do you want Shameless to continue without her? How many seasons should the show run?
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