Today is THE day! The Wonder Years returns to ABC tonight for Season 2.
Source: Courtesy / abc
BOSSIP’s Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden spoke with The Wonder Years stars Dulé Hill and Elisha Williams about Season 2 of the ABC reboot. The season kicks off with a guy’s trip to New York where Hill’s character Bill is working as a songwriter. Williams and Hill spoke about Dean’s terrible decision-making, the family’s musicality, and guest stars this season.
If you guys watched the first season, you already know that Williams’ character Dean is a smart, sweet and eager to please kid whose adolescent angst lands him in some pretty funny situations. As the youngest of the Williams family’s three kids, Dean has a hard time getting respect from his siblings and parents, so we were eager to see how much he has grown in Season 2. To our surprise, EJ Williams told us he actually is in no rush for Dean to grow up.
“This is 60’s — the more bass I get in my voice, the more they going to start treating me like an adult and Dean doesn’t want that,” Williams told Global Grind. “I think it’s definitely great to see the family life in Season 2. It’s great to see relationships build and just the lifestyle changes. Nothing always stays the same and everybody’s adjusting. Kim’s going to college. Bruce is back from Vietnam, so he’s not he’s not in war mode, he’s trying to live his regular life again, so I think that’s definitely great.”
Source: Matt Miller / abc
The first episode of The Wonder Years picks up where we left off at the end of last season, with Bill and Dean preparing to head to New York.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun for audiences to watch these two fish out of water, one grown fish and one young fish, but they’re both in in ponds that they’re not used to,” Dulé Hill told Global Grind. “Of course they’re not very tidy, that’s one thing I can tell you, but they’re really learning how to navigate the new spaces. Dean is young, in the Big Apple, and wants to know what that’s all about. Also for for Bill too, you’re really seeing them on parallel journeys. The thing that sticks with me is that they both are leaning into learning, growing and evolving at different stages of life, but they’re still both doing it and I think that’s something that happens as life goes on. You’re always learning, you’re always growing, you’re always evolving and that’s what we’ll see on that first episode.”
Season 2 features a number of all-star guest appearances, including Phoebe Robinson, Titus Burgess and the incomparable Ms. Patti LaBelle, who plays Bill’s mom on the show.
“I’m so looking forward to that episode when she comes on,” Dulé told Global Grind. “The idea of having Patti LaBelle sing along with Saycon Sengbloh, that is going to be one magnificent moment of television!”
Source: Matt Sayles / abc
We’re super excited to see Patti sing, and it’s always a treat when Saycon sings on the show, especially since Dulé is normally the one on the mic. Not to take anything away from Hill’s skills, EJ told us the entire set is full of talent.
“Literally all day on this Wonder Years set, there is never not any musicality going on,” EJ told us. “You’ll see Dulé either like tapping or you got him singing. You got Spence always singing, you got Dulé on the keyboard, you got Saycon — her whole voice is an instrument. Everybody’s always doing something musical on this set. Everybody here has some type of musical gift. We found out not too long ago that Laura can sing and everybody’s always doing something musical.”
“I will say when Miss Patti came on the show I did not sing,” Dulé chimed in. “You see you gotta you got to know your audience. I wasn’t gonna have her telling me I wasn’t singing. That’s got to be intimidating for sure.”
Source: Matt Miller / abc
You’ll probably remember Dean landed himself in the middle of a love triangle with his longtime crush Keisa and her new boyfriend Broderick, who has also befriended Dean since dating Keisa. As you can imagine, Dean is super nervous about what’s going on with them, so he turns to his Aunt Jackie (Phoebe Robinson) for advice. As you can probably guess, things won’t go exactly smoothly.
“The thing with Dean is he doesn’t realize that it’s a mistake until he’s deep in it,” EJ told Global Grind. “That’s what makes it funny because he realizes that it’s wrong after, it’s already wrecked everything but I feel like that’s a great learning experience because even with kids nowadays, sometimes you don’t realize that what you’re doing, it may be right to you, but it’s not the right thing. The whole forbidden fruit thing — I mean me cheating with Keisa on a dude that I’m friends with and she has a relationship with, that’s just crazy in itself. He’s definitely still getting himself into different messes but I think he makes wiser choices this season.”
Source: Matt Miller / abc
We can’t wait to watch!
The Wonder Years returns to ABC tonight Wednesday, June 14th at 9pm.
