UP ALL NIGHT Bosses Tease Season 2 Changes and Sean Hayes Guesting

When UP ALL NIGHT returns for its second season in September, things will be a bit different for the series: Ava’s talk show will no longer be a part of the season.

“I think we wanted to expand Ava’s roster of experiences,” UP ALL NIGHT creator Emily Spivey explained to reporters on set Tuesday. “And we just felt sort of her world being rocked and the rug being pulled out from under her just enabled us to open up her world. She can be more aspirational. She’s going to have more struggles, whether it be finding what her new creative outlet is [or] finding a man…We just wanted to make the whole thing a little more aspirational, and it better integrates her with Reagan and Chris’s stories and just enables her to move about a little more freely in the world.”

By getting rid of Ava’s show, the producers hope to be able to appeal to a wider audience — there seemed to be some concern that non-Hollywood types might not appreciate the insiderness of Ava’s talk show — and that series will feel a bit more cohesive going forward.

“I think that was part of [the goal of these changes] and to kind of center around the family and just to make it more of a family and friends show,” said executive producer Tucker Cawley. “But also we just felt last year, while we had, I think, some great moments in some great shows that took place at the Ava show, it always felt like we were juggling two tones. There was the home vibe and then the work vibe. And they never fully meshed. And so I just always felt…that the Ava character and Maya, they were at their best when they were struggling with something last year, whether it was finding a boyfriend or having some other kind of crisis, and I think bringing her away from having this show that she’s the head of and she’s very powerful and rich and kind of floating above it all, we would rather, like Emily said, kind of pull the rug out from under her and let her kind of find her way.”

One of the things Ava will be dealing with next season? The appearance of WILL & GRACE’s Sean Hayes as Ava’s former musical accompanist.

“Sean Hayes is gonna come on, and we love him,” Spivey said. “He’s very funny.”

“He’s going to have an arc ‑‑ he’s gonna be in a few episodes  ‑‑ as Ava’s former musical accompanist that she kind of left high and dry when she moved on to bigger and better things,” Cawley added. “And so we’ll see how those two, when they hook up again, how that goes.”

As for Reagan, she’ll be experiencing a bit of freedom of her own as she will be sans a job when the show returns.

“She might take some time to be with her little one, that she’s missed,” Spivey said about Reagan’s path in season 2. “And I think she may take some of type-A producer‑type qualities and gear it towards raising a child, which is easier said than done. You can’t produce a child like a TV show, you guys…It doesn’t work that way. I tried.”

UP ALL NIGHT’s second season premieres on September 20th at 8:30 PM on NBC.

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