For six seasons, NBC’s Superstore has brought viewers inside the Ozark Highlands location of Cloud 9, a big-box store that’s a few rungs down the ladder from Target. And while employees are constantly dealing with unruly customers who sample spray-tanner and deodorant, discard their gum in store displays, and leave their children unattended, their most constant antagonist has been the Cloud 9 corporation itself.
The store’s manager, Glenn Sturgis (Mark McKinney), only works there because the company put his dad’s hardware store out of business. As an hourly employee, teen mom Cheyenne (Nichole Sakura) won’t be eligible for any maternity leave. Stagnant wages, little possibility of advancement, well-financed union-busting efforts, the constant threat of store closure: the characters have weathered all of these (as well as actual weather, in the form of a tornado that ravaged the store in the season two finale). Still, there have been moments of grace, as when lifer Amy (America Ferrera) and business-school dropout Jonah (Ben Feldman) finally got together as a couple. A huge promotion to the California office of Cloud 9’s new parent company Zephra broke them up in the second episode of the show’s sixth season, when Ferrera left the show. Then, early in December, NBC announced that the current season would be its last.
A shorter-than-expected season wrapped up with Amy returning, trying to convince a Zephra analyst to keep the Ozark Highlands location open while 95% of the other Cloud 9 stores close. When her effort proves unsuccessful, Glenn presses her into service back on the floor for the store’s very last day. Amy tentatively confesses her feelings to Jonah, who’s just ended his relationship with local lawyer Hannah (Maria Thayer). Of course, he reciprocates. Phew!
I spoke to Ben Feldman about his time on the show, making one of the few TV series about the working class, and the gap its departure will leave.
Vanity Fair: You have been a union member for your entire career. What has it meant to you to get to tell a story about labor through these six seasons of the show?
Ben Feldman: I think you don’t see this dynamic a lot on television. It’s a scary story to tell, because we are union members, and we have this dynamic in real life. I work for NBC, which is Universal and Comcast. There are corporate overlords, and there are elements of greed, or even just sort of a distant separation, between the people on the ground and the people upstairs. I thought it was an important story to tell, because you don’t see that a lot on television, and particularly in the working-class world, with these big-business grocery stores or big-box stores, and certainly right now when [real-life people are] risking their lives to show up to these jobs. Yes. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of, I think, on this show.
Did the show ever consider making the union drive successful, or was it more important to tell the depressing truth than present a happy ending?
I mean, yeah. Aside from the central romance, we don’t really traffic in happy endings. And that’s, I think, the point of the show. There’s a moment in the final monologue that Colton Dunn’s character Garrett says…it’s something along the lines of, there’ve been all these kinds of shitty moments, and this job is such a drudge. It’s hard, and it’s not fun, and there [are] so many drawbacks and minuses. And yet, he was saying in the end, “All I can remember right now are the good times.”
And I think, ultimately, that’s what the show was about. It was about the people around you. It was basically, life sucks; enjoy the moments you have with the people you have. Maybe if we weren’t canceled and we had future seasons, the union story was one of the trajectories [we would have pursued]. Maybe there would have been a small win, but I don’t think, ultimately, there ever would have been this big, throw-your-hands-in-the-air-and-celebrate [moment] if you’re talking about corporations.
In terms of how much darker things could have gone, it’s been reported that one abandoned idea was for Jonah to be revealed at the end of season one as a corporate spy monitoring union organizing efforts. Is that a villain arc you’re sorry you didn’t get a chance to play?
To a degree, yes. That would have been fun to play, and then he would have realized, “This is my family and I love them, and so screw this whole undercover thing that I’m doing.” I don’t think that idea gained a lot of traction in the room. I think it was just an idea thrown out there, but yeah—it’s always fun to play a conflicted [person] and a villain.
It’s hard to come back from, though.
It is. Or we would have bought it back, and it wouldn’t have felt very satisfying. A lot of times shows will introduce something like that and then kind of buy it back in the laziest, [most] unfulfilling way. And that’s another thing that they don’t love to do on Superstore.
What did you learn from Jonah’s fights against the Cloud 9 corporate machine?
Well, I mean…I learned, as someone in the machine in real life, and who’s been, I should say, very lucky, I shouldn’t be complaining about anything—
I’m not trying to set you up. This is not a sting operation.
No, of course, of course. But with that caveat aside, I think I live it in real life, and we got to tell the stories in the show, and there is a salmon element to it. There’s always an upstream kind of vibe, little battles here and there. But in the long run, what they’re rarely looking out for is this altruistic idea of our happiness, our health, and our safety, and our prosperity. It is very rarely, if not never, that. You learn that doing it in real life, and you learn that playing it on TV. That said, Universal is wonderful. I love them so much, and I continue to watch and would love to be a part of any of their future properties.
Let’s talk about the finale. What was it like acting opposite Maria Thayer as Hannah for those last few episodes when you knew, and she knew, and everyone watching knew, or at least hoped, that your character was heading toward a reunion with Amy when the series ended? Because she’s comedy royalty. I mean, Strangers With Candy, Eagleheart…
A million years ago, the casting director of the Strangers With Candy movie liked me for one of the parts in it, but I think somebody else didn’t in the production team. I actually went to New York and did a table read of that movie with her and then ultimately did not get cast. But yeah, there was kind of a weird connection to Maria. I love her. She’s an incredible actress. She went to Juilliard. She’s one of those actors that makes you better when you work opposite them. When the role was created for her, we did not know that season six was our last. I think some people knew that her character would have to be wrapped up and moved out of the way for the other one to come back.
She probably would have continued on for a while, and there would have been a really interesting dynamic there. And for a little bit, she played an element in the final union trajectory as well. But you don’t have a lot of real estate when suddenly you’re 15 episodes instead of 22, and it’s the end, and you’re trying to get America [Ferrera] back and everything. So it bummed me out, because it felt like a missed opportunity, but there’s so many great things that came out of this.
I feel like I finish every answer with, “But just to be clear, I’m very happy and very lucky.” But yeah, Maria is great. I love her. And we brought a lot of the even smaller, interstitial people, all the way down to Betsy Sodaro in the end. There was a loyalty that casting and the producers of this show felt, and I think because of it, there were so many great payoffs. Loyalty to these characters, these bit parts, these interstitials—just so many great people came back. And then Dave Foley. So yeah, it was fun.
In terms of the COVID safety restrictions that were in place on the production, was there ever any doubt that America Ferrera would, or that she could, return?
No. I mean, getting America from New York to California was initially something that needed to be figured out, but America’s also working on Gente-fied, which is her show, and she was directing. So she was actually getting tested constantly over there anyway. There are so many rules and protocols and safety measures in place that it’s hard not to feel [safer] on the Universal lot. Once again, I sound like a corporate shill, but it feels safer on the Universal lot than it does going to Rite Aid, or even walking down the street.
Once you knew the show was ending, was there any debate about a different ending for Jonah and Amy’s love story?
I mean, maybe there were thoughts. Look, we’ve been doing this for a long time. We climbed the mountain. We’re tired; so are the fans. Everybody should go home with what they want. How we got there was a massive discussion that was seemingly endless. A lot of people had a lot of opinions, and America and I and the writers and the other producers were just in a constant, ongoing discussion about the levels of how heated it gets, and how emotional it gets, and how much Jonah stands up, how much Jonah’s fighting, pushing back. What she wants, what he wants, what we learn about them in the flashback interviews [in the final episode, when we see Glenn’s tapes of all the employees’ initial Cloud 9 job interviews], and how that sets us on a path to get to where they are at the end. All of that was a discussion that literally went on until the second we wrapped each individual scene. It was great to have America back, because America cares a lot too, and America has a lot of very thoughtful opinions that she could add, and she knows how to fight for what she likes too.
We also see in the finale’s epilogue that Jonah is running for city council. What do you think his platform is?
It’s funny. When I met with costumes for that, Alix [Hester], who’s the costume designer for our show, had some ideas. And I was like, “Honestly, it’s just got to be Beto [O’Rourke]. It’s a sleeves-rolled-up, kind of loose tie, maybe sweaty armpit, kind of on-the-ground, fighting-for-the-little-guy thing.” Someone asked us back during the beginning of the election cycle, the last one, “Which candidate would Superstore be if it were a candidate?” And without hesitation, it was Elizabeth Warren, I thought. And I think you would have seen a lot of Warren-esque qualities [from Jonah] in that campaign.
Superstore was one of just a few scripted TV shows that addressed material issues from the point of view of characters that are really struggling; two others, Shameless and Mom, are also ending this year. Can you talk about how you think that’ll affect the landscape of TV, especially now?
I think one of the things that was the most important to me about our show is that we were not only representing the working class or the struggling class, but also representing the part of them that were also essential and that were risking their lives to do these jobs. And I think in a really weird, sort of morbid way, COVID added an energy to our final season that I think was, in a way, beautiful, and a lot of it became a love letter to them. We play them, and then we’d go back to our trailers and we go back home. And when COVID happened, we all sprinted back to our houses, and we Postmates Chinese food for a year. And the people we played on TV—these goofy, silly, blue-collar workers—became heroes, and were out there risking their lives far more than anybody else. So I think this show was a tribute to them.
There will hopefully be more of that in the television landscape coming up. I think one of the things we proved is that people do want to see themselves reflected on television. A lot of times, people say, “Television is about escape. I don’t want to see masks on your show,” or, “I don’t want to see struggles.” And it’s like, yeah, television is about escape. That’s one thing it is. And that’s why you watch dragon shows or whatever. But sometimes people want to see themselves on TV, and that, in a way, is an escape—because it’s an escape from feeling lonely, and it’s a reminder that you’re seen and that you are represented.
So I hope that will be something that continues. We said, “Hey, we see you, we are you, and here’s our funny take on it. We know you’re pretty depressed with all of this stuff.” We figured out, what are people talking about, and how can we make it funny? And if we couldn’t find a way to make it funny, we wouldn’t air it—or it would be an ICE raid, and it would be the end of a season. I think there’s a deep hunger to see that [representation] on television, and I’m sure we’re going to see more of it.
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