Billy Gardell as Bob, Travis Wolfe, Jr. as Dele, and Folake Olowofoyeku as Abishola in BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA – Season 5 – “These Giants Are Flexible” | ©2024 CBS

BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA is now in its fifth and final season on CBS Monday nights, with episodes thereafter available on Paramount+ and older seasons available on Max. The half-hour comedy charts the unlikely romance of American socks company owner Bob (Billy Gardell) and hospital nurse Abishola (Fọláké Olówófôyekù), a Nigerian immigrant.

The series was created by Eddie Gorodetsky, Alan J. Higgins, Chuck Lorre, and Gina Yashere, an Englishwoman of Nigerian heritage, who also costars on BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA as Abishola’s best friend Kemi.

When Warner Bros. Television hosts a BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA set visit for the Winter 2024 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour, there is a Q&A session on Stage 25, where the series is shot. The producers are asked whether this is the last season because they feel the storyline is reaching a natural endpoint, or because of CBS. Yashere replies immediately and with certainty, “CBS.”

When the question becomes what everyone feels they needed to therefore do to make the story complete, Matt Ross, another executive producer/writer on BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA, says that completion isn’t the goal. “I think the trick is, you treat these characters like real people, and so you don’t complete their lives, you don’t try to tie a bow on it. We get our little windows into these moments, and there could be fifty more stories to tell. It’s not our job to say, ‘And bon voyage, they’re done learning and they’re done being interesting.’ It’s our job to have fun with them and to entertain the audience as long as we have the privilege to do so.”

Ross adds that having Yashere and the Nigerian-born Olówófôyekù has been vital to the success and verisimilitude of BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA. “Obviously, being a thirty-seven-year-old white guy from Idaho, I can’t speak to the Nigerian-American experience in the same way. So, our job as writers who don’t have that background is to facilitate that representation, to get out of the way whenever possible, and to get in where we fit in when we can identify with the stories. I don’t have [the experience of Abishola’s teen son Dele, played by Travis Wolfe Jr.], but I was raised by a single mother. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up and, whenever possible, when I can connect to a scene, I realize it’s a love letter to my mom. We take care of these characters, and we make them real by putting all of our heart in it, and then getting the hell our of the way when Gina and Fọláké have a story to tell.”

When the Q&A panel finishes, Ross – who has also been a writer/producer on TWO AND A HALF MEN, LADY DYNAMITE, and THE RANCH – takes time for some follow-up questions.

BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA – Season 5 Key Art | ©2024 CBS

One of the things that Ross relates has struck him during the run of BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA is that he now has a better understanding of attitudes and behavior that he once might have interpreted differently. “I think that the thing I love the most about Abishola and Dele’s relationship is what love looks like for her, what being protective looks like for her. Where for some people, it might seem demanding or overbearing, for her, when we’ve gotten to see and hear the truth of where it comes from, which is, he’s a Black man in America, he’s an immigrant man in America, she wants him to have as many advantages as possible. So, it’s from this place of just wanting to take care of him in the only way that she knows how, which is to give him the tools and the weapons and the defenses that she needed to make her journey. And it’s been really cool to learn that, and to set down any kind of notions I might have had about a quote-unquote tough parent.”

Having explored immigration, blended families and multi-culturalism in BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA, are there other topics that Ross would like gently massage into a half-hour comedy?

“I think that the best shows these days do have some quote-unquote issue, and a deeper heart to them, and more than anything, it’s telling untold stories, especially now. I think with this long overdue push of diversity and inclusion and championing voices that don’t necessarily look like me, or they’re not from where I’m from, what I would be drawn to would be more stories like that. I think people don’t need to hear more about the standard American experience anymore. So, there are some irons in the fire, there are some thoughts, and it is more about finding and raising the voices of others wherever possible.”

Folake Olowofoyeku as Abishola and Billy Gardell as Bob in BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA Season 1 – “Ralph Lauren and Fish” | ©2019 CBS/Michael Yarish

With what’s going on in the U.S. in this election year, does Ross have any desire to write anything that’s a little more pointed?

“A question like that came up around the pandemic, because we sort of shut down this show. And one of the things we talked about behind the scenes was, ‘How do we deal with this? Are we going to touch it, are we not?’ And a lot of what I learned through Chuck’s guidance, amongst other people, was that it’s okay to treat TV as the escape, as, ‘Let’s sit down, let’s enjoy ourselves for half an hour, let’s celebrate the things we have in common, and let’s not necessarily have to make it such a fraught thing.’

“Now, I grew up in a red state, so what attracts me is showing people from a state that somebody in New York or California might have a certain preconception about, and say, ‘You know, those are three-dimensional people with three-dimensional interests, too.’ So, I think, to your question, the best way to address a divided climate is to just show human stories from people of all walks of life, and let us all take inspiration from that, and hopefully, that does our small drop in the bucket to make the world a better place.”

BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA Season 1 Key Art | ©2019 CBS

Related: BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA co-creator and actress Gina Yashere on new CBS sitcom  – Exclusive Interview

Related: BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA co-creator Chuck Lorre chats about his new CBS sitcom  – Exclusive Interview

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Article: BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA executive producer and writer Matt Ross on the fifth and final season of the CBS sitcom  – Exclusive Interview

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