After receiving multiple complaints about the behaviour of Jeff Garlin on the set of The Goldbergs last year, the actor and the studio mutually agreed that he would not return. The long-running comedy series was in the midst of its ninth season when Jeff Garlin exited, which meant that the remaining episodes had to use Garlin’s stand-in, previously used dialogue, and unused takes to keep his character in the series. When The Goldbergs returns for its tenth season, they won’t have to tiptoe around Jeff Garlin’s absence as his character is being killed off.
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, The Goldbergs co-showrunner Alex Barnow explained how the new season will address what happened with Murray Goldberg (Jeff Garlin).
Well, [Garlin is] not going to be on the season, obviously. [Murray] will have passed, and we are sort of starting from a place of multiple months removed from his death. The family has already grieved, unlike Pops [George Segal] and the premiere of season 9 where they’re dealing with it sort of very freshly. This is going to be a family that has not reconciled the fact that their father’s gone but has sort of moved on and has dealt with a lot of that.
Alex Barnow continued, “So we’re starting with optimism about a baby coming and looking forward to the future. It’s an opportunity for this interesting emotional basis for the way people are behaving. But Jeff won’t be in the series this year, and so far the stories have been largely about looking forward rather than looking back.” Barnow added that he’s had a conversation with Jeff Garlin and that the actor knows he’s not being replaced on The Goldbergs, but it doesn’t sound like he knew his character was being killed off. “The truth is, I don’t know if he knows what his fate is, but I’m assuming he knows, would be the answer to that question,” Barnow said. “We haven’t had a subsequent conversation since the beginning of writing that he would have any specific clarity on that.“
The tenth season of The Goldbergs will premiere on ABC on September 21st.