Justin Spitzer’s irreverent, beautifully weird workplace comedy “Superstore,” which ran from 2015 to 2021, shared some traits with other popular “office” sitcoms like “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Parks and Recreation,” and, well, “The Office” — if any of those shows had a running gag about finding severed feet in their respective workplaces, that is. So why did the show end after its sixth season?
The answer is both simple and complicated if I’m being honest; a major star made the choice to leave the series behind for new opportunities, and a global pandemic put a damper on pretty much all human interaction and work for a while (even though the show did make the “most” of that situation, so to speak). Let’s back up for one moment, though. “Superstore,” true to its name, takes place in a fictional big-box store called Cloud 9 — which certainly bears some similarities to Targets and Walmarts across the country — and in a particular branch in St. Louis, Missouri that happens to be home to a colorful cast of characters.
Jonah Simms, played by Ben Feldman, is the audience’s entry point into the show’s social ecosystem — Jonah takes a job there after dropping out of business school, putting him at odds with his colleagues immediately — and during his time at Cloud 9, Jonah works under associate floor supervisor Amy Sosa (America Ferrera), weirdly intense assistant store manager Dina Fox (Lauren Ash), and chirpy, positive store manager Glenn Sturgis (Mark McKinney). Rounding out the main cast of characters are the rest of the Cloud 9 employees, including Nichole Sakura’s bubbly Cheyenne Lee, Colton Dunn’s sardonic Garrett McNeil, and Nico Santos as the delightfully judgy Mateo Fernando Aquino Liwanag, creating a diverse and extraordinarily funny group of characters. Here’s why the show had to come to a close, though, despite it being one of the best workplace comedies ever made.
America Ferrera left Superstore before season 6, which may have contributed to the cancellation
America Ferrera — who was previously known for projects like “Ugly Betty” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” before taking the job on “Superstore” — announced that she would leave the series in February of 2020, just a few weeks after the show got renewed for its sixth season. In a statement obtained by outlets like Deadline, Ferrera — who also directed a handful of episodes and served as a producer on the show — said, “The last five years on ‘Superstore’ have been some of the most rewarding, enriching and enjoyable years of my career […] As I start the next chapter for my family and career, I wish only the best, and much continued success, to my beloved ‘Superstore’ family.”
This all went down in February 2020, and we all know what happened the following month. The world shut down more or less entirely for a handful of weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing everyone into isolation long before a vaccine was made available; naturally, this affected the production of “Superstore.” The show did film again in the fall of 2020 — utilizing protective gear like face masks just like their real “essential workers” would in an actual big-box store like Cloud 9 — but in December of that year, Variety reported that season 6 would close out the series altogether, and the finale ultimately aired in February of 2021. Did Ferrera’s departure decide the fate of “Superstore?” It was also probably related to pandemic delays, but it certainly didn’t help that one of the show’s highest-profile performers left the project before COVID-19 became an issue.
What happens at the end of Superstore?
Ultimately, America Ferrera — and, by extension, Amy Sosa — returned for the very end of “Superstore,” including the finale “All Sales Final,” to bring everything full circle. With the St. Louis Cloud 9 store’s uncertain future looming over all the characters, they ultimately decide to scatter and seek out new opportunities as the store prepares to become an online fulfillment center. While Dina gets to pick five employees to work at the fulfillment center, Glenn and Amy decide to move on, and while Garrett thinks about his ups and downs at Cloud 9, viewers are treated to a handy montage of what happens to all of the “Superstore” characters after the events of the finale.
Amy and Jonah, whose slow-burn romance was a huge part of the series, get married and have a child together (with Jonah running for local political office and Amy continuing to work in corporate America in the process), and Dina and Garrett, whose love connection was considerably weirder, also get together; Glenn reopens his family hardware store Sturgis & Sons and hires Mateo, Cheyenne, and her wayward husband Bo (Johnny Pemberton) to work there with him. (Dina also still works at the fulfillment center alongside a handful of colleagues). Also, it turns out that one of the store’s weirdest employees, a creep named Elias played by Danny Gura, was leaving all those severed feet everywhere, so there’s that.
“Superstore” is streaming on Hulu now.
