Shameless fans shared a lot of thoughts about its series finale, including wishing Emmy Rossum‘s character Fiona had made an appearance for the sake of closure. Alas, it wasn’t in the cards.
During a interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Monday, April 12, showrunner John Wells explained that Emmy, who exited the Showtime series during the season 9 finale that aired in March 2019, had hoped to return for the April 11 finale. But the logistics just didn’t work out amid the pandemic, given that the 34-year-old star lives in New York City, while Shameless filmed in Los Angeles.
“We were trying to get Emmy—and Emmy wanted to come back,” John said. “We caught it at the wrong moment. We wanted her to return and had some storylines about her coming back, and she wanted to do it. Based on what was going on with the pandemic, when we were planning it—there have been so many surges, I can’t remember which one it was—but the quarantines went back into effect between New York and Los Angeles, and it was impossible to figure out how to get her back.”