Happy’s Place will introduce Reba McEntire‘s onscreen daughter in an upcoming episode of the new NBC sitcom.
Elizabeth Alderfer has been cast as Gracie, the daughter of McEntire’s character Bobbie on Happy’s Place. According to TV Line, Alderfer, 38, will make her first appearance halfway through season 1 and is described as a “no-nonsense, and somewhat tough” character.
“Gracie is in the military and has been deployed overseas,” the official character description read. “She has just gone on leave and is returning home to Knoxville to surprise her mother, only to be surprised herself to discover that she now has an aunt that she never knew she had.”
Happy’s Place, which premieres on Friday, October 18, follows Bobbie (McEntire) as she inherits her father’s restaurant and discovers a new business partner in the long-lost half-sister (Belissa Escobedo) she didn’t know she had. Melissa Peterman plays a bartender at the restaurant while McEntire’s boyfriend, Rex Linn, also appears as tavern cook Emmett.
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The sitcom reunites McEntire, 69, and Peterman, 53, more than 17 years after their hit series Reba ended its run on The WB. In addition to McEntire and Peterman, the beloved show also starred Christopher Rich, JoAnna Garcia Swisher and Steve Howey, who has already been cast in a role in the Christmas episode of Happy’s Place.
“It’s a lot of fun. We absolutely want to bring some of the old cast members on — and in very different roles than what they played on Reba,” Kevin Abbott, an executive producer on Reba when it aired on The WB between 2001 and 2007, told TVLine earlier this month. “Steve’s our first one up, and we’re trying to figure out how to bring JoAnna in. We only want to have the old cast in if we can really utilize them in a fun, impactful way.”
In a recent cover story, McEntire recently spoke exclusively to Us Weekly about getting to work with Peterman again. (The duo previously reunited on CMT’s Working Class, Freeform’s Baby Daddy and Lifetime’s The Hammer.)
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“[Reuniting with Melissa] was like riding a bike — there was a muscle memory. But we haven’t been apart ever since 2006 when Reba ended,” she shared in an October cover story. “There have been lots of times where she was out on tour with me opening the show for me — coming out and doing a bit in the middle of my concert. Fans love it.”
McEntire touched on the enduring impact Reba still has on viewers, to which she replied, “People related to it because there are many in that situation across the United States — teen pregnancy, moving in with mom, challenging things happening. But primarily, it’s the heart of it. It was funny, clever, mischievous, dorky, but it had a lot of heart.”
Happy’s Place premieres Friday, October 18, at 8 pm on NBC.
