Last Man Standing Season Eight Finale Ends With A Cliffhanger

Photo credit: tvline.com

Episode 21 of season eight of the popular sitcom Last Man Standing, starring Tim Allen as Mike Baxter, aired Thursday night on FOX. The episode, “How You Like Them Pancakes?” revolved around the Baxter’s youngest daughter, Eve, returning home from the Air-force Academy for the weekend. Vanessa tried to recreate a Baxter tradition by having all three of her daughter’s over for pancake making on Sunday morning. The plan was going great, until the oldest of the Baxter daughters, Kristen, announced she was going into labor with her second child.

At the hospital, Eve shared a special moment with both her parents, telling them how much she missed them while she’s been away. Before we (the audience) could get emotional, Kristen’s husband Ryan and Mandy’s husband Kyle walked into the waiting room.

The episode ended with Ryan going to comfort Kristen, Kyle taking Mandy, who is also pregnant, to go get some fresh air, and Mike delivering a classic Outdoor Man vlog on how children need their parents’ help when they are younger, but when they get old, they take their parents completely for granted.

If you are wondering if Kristen had her baby yet, she hasn’t, and she may not for a while. That is because this episode was not supposed to be the show’s season finale.

The cast was all set to shoot the season finale. Then, on the day of the scheduled shoot, the coronavirus outbreak struck, FOX instructed that the taping could not happen, and the season finale was put on hold.

It begs the question: If there is a season nine (which there absolutely should be), how will it start? Will Kristen still be in labor, or will baby No. 2. be born already, and FOX fast-forwards the storyline.

The answer may be entirely based on the actor that plays Eve, Kaitlyn Dever, as weird as that sounds.

Dever was a regular on the show from 2011-2017 (seasons one-six). However, back then, the show aired on ABC. When the network decided to not renew the show for a seventh season, many cast members from the “original” show took on other roles on other shows, including Dever. When FOX picked the show back up in 2018, Dever’s busy schedule could not allow her to continue as a regular, hence the reason why her character joined the Airforce Academy, so she could be essentially written out of the storyline unless something major happens with her family, like the birth of her niece. 

Whenever the coronavirus outbreak subsides, and FOX greenlights season nine of the show, the writers are going to have to come up with a solution to this dilemma. Season eight technically ends with Eve at the hospital with her parents waiting for the birth of her niece. How does this story continue?

I actually think the answer is quite easy: The show continues where it left off with Eve still in the storyline.

Why do I say that? Because reading in-between the lines lately, it sounds like she still wants to be a part of the show, she has let FOX know that, and the cast wants her back.

In an interview recently with Pop Culture, Amanda Fuller, who plays Kristen on the show, had this to say about Dever.

“She’ll reach out to us and be like, ‘I’m not doing anything for the next few weeks. Put me in, coach’. She wants to be there with us anytime she can, and it just means a lot to us that she still feels like she’s part of the family, and we’re just happy to have her whenever we can have her. And, hopefully, if we get a nine, which I think is looking positive, she has time where she can be in it more.”

In my head, I’m picturing the start of season nine is Kristen having the baby, and everything goes smoothly with all of her family members by her side, including her youngest sister.

Please make it happen FOX!

Brandon Lewis is the Web Director for Spring 2020 at Black Squirrel Radio. Follow him on Twitter @brandonlewis_7.