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As the second season of Somebody, Somewhere prepares to premiere on HBO, viewers will undoubtedly seek out Mike Hagerty's endearing character, Ed Miller. The senior actor suddenly passed away on Thursday, May 5, 2022, in a Los Angeles hospital, leaving a void in the hearts of fans and the team attached to Somebody Somewhere.
His character, Ed Miller, was a Kansas farmer and Sam’s father, the show’s protagonist. Since his appearance on the show, Miller has won over viewers for his soft-spoken and warm nature.
That apart, in season 1 of Somebody Somewhere, fans also witnessed touching emotional moments between Miller and his daughter Sam, while they supported one another and tackled grief after an intense personal loss. These sequences eventually became the highlights of the underrated show.
Given the impact, fans were truly looking forward to more of Miller’s antics in Somebody Somewhere season 2. He was, in fact, supposed to be “heavily featured,” in the next season of the HBO comedy-drama, as said by lead star and co-executive producer Bridget Everett to USA Today.
However, the plan was derailed after Hagerty’s sudden and tragic death at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles due to a seizure. He was 67 at the time.
Somebody Somewhere team rewrote the script after Mike Hagerty’s sudden demise
Season 2 of Somebody Somewhere is slated to hit HBO on Sunday, April 23, 2023, at 10.30 pm ET. The episodes usually last 24–30 minutes, and the sophomore season is expected to follow the same pattern.
Apart from Bridget Everett being the lead character of Sam, the second season will star Jeff Hiller as Joel, Sam's co-worker, and friend Mary Catherine Garrison as Sam's sister Tricia Miller, Danny McCarthy as Tricia's husband Rick, and Murray Hill as soil scientist Fred Rococo, among others.
The cast was to include Hagerty as Ed Miller as well. But his untimely demise a couple of weeks before they were to hit the floor forced executive producer Carolyn Strauss and showrunners Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen to modify the script and craft a plot to honor the actor’s hollow absence.
Hiller attested to that too and told The Press-Enterprise:
“The writers did a brilliant job of reworking the script by giving a lot more to the character of Sam’s sister Tricia and everyone took other parts of the story where it would make sense. They did this all while they were deeply grieving.”
Hailing her co-star and on-screen father, Everett gushed that Mike Hagerty was “a vital person” on the sets and his “heart and humor were instrumental in the success of the first season.”
To note, Miller wasn’t just loved because of his bond with Sam among other factors; the man stood out due to the sincere way he tried to retain his family’s fabric, despite his wife, Mary Jo (played by Jane Drake Brody), struggling with alcoholism, his daughter Holly’s passing due to cancer, and Sam’s path of self-discovery.
And given the late Hagerty’s ability to emote, Miller looked tailor-made for him. So, it’s natural that fans will miss him heavily, but, be assured, the showrunners haven’t killed him off.
The Daily Beast, in its review, said that the show treats “his character’s departure like a death, permitting the weight of that grief to impress upon the season.”
Don’t forget to watch Somebody Somewhere season 2 when it hits HBO on April 23, 2023, at 10.30 pm ET.
