Image Credit: Carin Baer/ABC
Mother’s Day might have been last Sunday, but the people of Chatswin are celebrating it on tonight’s season finale of Suburgatory. And since the ABC sitcom is set in the suburbs, Mother’s Day is a big deal that, rather fittingly, is wrapped into a big contest amongst the town’s wacky constellation of characters. “It’s a full-town competition to prove whose mother is loved the most,” explains star Ana Gasteyer, who recently was upped from recurring to series regular for playing quirky, perfection-obsessed mother Sheila Shay. “There’s this totally asinine situation, with just days and days of us racing around — Shelia is just super hardcore. And as you can imagine, Sheila has high and exacting standards, and she likes to win, so there’s a lot of shenanigans surrounding that.”
Gasteyer can’t say enough about what you’ll see tonight. “It’s just a great episode because [creator] Emily Kapnek is just a genius,” she says. “Tessa [Jane Levy] is motherless. It’s like a huge component of why George brought her to the suburbs — why she is there — so it kind of hits the motherhood question from every angle.”
In terms of Shelia’s own relationship with her daughter Lisa (Allie Grant), there’s a big moment coming between the pair, too. “There’s a bit of a cliffhanger with Sheila and Lisa coming up,” Gasteyer says, “but yeah, I’m not allowed to say anything. I was told to keep my mouth shut.” Is there any chance the mother-daughter duo might reconcile all their differences? Fat chance. “It’s not getting resolved in an episode,” Gasteyer says. “It most certainly ain’t. But yeah, their relationship is loaded and fraught and it’s only going to get more so.”
Lastly, Gasteyer says that the finale provided her the opportunity to cross something off her personal bucket list… although she may just be saying that facetiously. “My dream of dressing up as Cinderella and riding in a carriage with my family has finally come true,” she says, with a laugh. “It’s a tiny little moment, but you will get to see me in full Cinderella glory. And I also will have a very, very, well known R&B singer serenade me.”
Now that Gasteyer has previewed tonight’s season finale, let’s see how she handles being grilled with an EW Pop Culture Personality Test.
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