BETTER WITH YOU: Reba McEntire, Joanna Garcia and Jake Lacy on Reba’s Guest Spot

Reba McEntire, the cougar?

While visiting the BETTER WITH YOU set as McEntire filmed her guest appearance (the episode airs tonight at 8:30 p.m.), Give Me My Remote learned that when the country music legend first agreed to appear on the show (and reunite with Joanna Garcia, her REBA costar), she was set to be Casey’s ex-girlfriend.

“[Executive producer] Greg Malins was in my dressing room saying, ‘Picture this: Reba with a fan in her hair. And really sexy outfit,'” Garcia recalled. “I swear to God, I’m not lying. He’s like, ‘Soft lighting, music playing in the background, we’re going to make her look like a rock star.’ I was like, ‘Okay, now I’m starting to see where this is headed. You’re going to exploit her.'”

“I told Jo, ‘Don’t they know how old I am?'” McEntire laughed. “She says, ‘Yeah, you’ll be a cougar!’ I don’t know how I feel about that. Then when I got the script about being a wedding planner, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s probably going to be better.'”

While we would have loved to see Mia’s reaction as McEntire was revealed to be Casey’s ex, the new storyline has her playing one of the top wedding experts in town — someone Mia would love to put in charge of planning her nuptials.

However, no one told Jake Lacy (Casey) about the script change and he went into the table read with the assumption that McEntire was playing his ex.

“I was like, did they bring her [on for a future episode] and she’s just hanging out now?” Lacy recalled. “Oh, she just came to see the read, that’s sweet! I didn’t know she was playing the wedding planner! I’m like, ‘I guess you’re my girlfriend.’ She’s like, ‘No.’ I’m like, ‘I guess you’re not up on the latest.'”

And while McEntire admitted she was nervous about being on a sitcom for the first time since REBA ended, she said the BETTER WITH YOU scribes made everything easier. “They’re great writers,” she said. “And when you have great writers, it’s so much easier to memorize [lines]. So I’ve been having a wonderful time and falling back into it fairly well.”

A good enough time that she’d be willing to come back again? “I would love it,” McEntire said.

For McEntire’s next storyline, Garcia proposes that the duo work together to plan weddings. But McEntire’s thinking she’ll get fired from the wedding planner gig and have to be Mia and Casey’s nanny.

Love it.

Will you be watching Reba McEntire on BETTER WITH YOU tonight at 8:30 p.m. on ABC?

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