"Modern Family" Season 10 got surrounded by hype when its co-creator Christoper Cloyd revealed in September that someone would die. Fast forward to Wednesday, October 24, Episode 5 "Good Grief," DeDe (Shelley Long) took her final bow and bid her goodbye to the possible final season of the ABC sitcom. But was it worth all the hype?
"Modern Family" Season 10 had been making headlines even before the show started in September. When Christopher Cloyd revealed someone would die, it sent fans to frenzy, wondering who could it be. Of course, to build the hype, the co-creator didn't give any further details about it. But viewers never expected it to be a minor character.
DeDe died because of a heart problem that she never wanted to talk about. She died peacefully on her sleep in "Modern Family" Season 10 while on a trip with her women's group to Greenland. She met her demise after she successfully surpassed the dangers of being swallowed by a whale and wolves.
Fans only saw DeDe in seven episodes. But she had made a great impact on "Modern Family" Season 10, and on its characters.
"That is one of the things that make this complicated and interesting," co-creator Steve Levitan said about DeDe's death on "Modern Family" Season 10, via Cinema Blend. "Whenever people have any kind of a complicated relationship with somebody, and then they die, it brings up a lot of things."
Steve Levitan continued to say that even before "Modern Family" Season 10 started, they were thinking of a way of how it would flow. The idea of DeDe's death came up, and everyone loved it. After her demise, there would be another episode that would feature how everyone would deal with its aftermath.
Addressing the issue about the failed hype, Steve Levitan also told the Hollywood Reporter, through TV Guide, that the writers would want to kill a character who had a great impact to the family in "Modern Family" Season 10. As death is something that the show has not explored yet in 10 seasons, they wanted to show how everyone would deal with it.
"[Dede] is directly involved with three of our characters and she touched everybody's life in some interesting way," Steve Levitan explained. He added that she was the perfect character to greatly affect everyone as she had made a direct impact too much of the characters' lives.
Steve Levitan also revealed that Shelley Long already knew her character's fate before "Modern Family" Season 10 started, and she was "very sweet about it." The show's future, on the other hand, remained to be unknown as ABC has yet to renew the show.
