One day we’re all going to look back at 2020 as that curious year where a lot of television took place via the video-conference platform, Zoom, and it’s all going to feel very strange and out of place to our future selves. In the present, however, we are all beginning to adjust to watching celebrities talk to other celebrities from their living rooms for the entertainment of non-celebrities, who are also stuck in their own living rooms.
From this very bizarre time comes Friday Night In with the Morgans, a charming little AMC show that seeks to provide some comfort and familiarity to viewers, at least among those of us who are fans of two of the longest running shows on television, The Walking Dead and Supernatural. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is obviously a star of both shows, and on the first episode of Friday Night in with the Morgans, Morgan and his wife, Hilarie Burton, shared screens with Supernatural‘s Jensen Ackles and his wife, Danneel Ackles, as well as Christian Serratos, who plays Rosita on The Walking Dead (and was halfway through production on the first season of her Netflix series about Selena when the pandemic led to a pause). The Morgans also brought in their own personal physician, Dr. Sheragim Kemp.
It’s a comforting half-hour of television, if only because it allows us all to see some beloved celebrities from a different perspective: In their living rooms, as bored as many of the rest of us. They have more money, nicer houses, and a lot more land and little fear about their future financial security, but day-to-day, they battle the same issues trying to keep their kids preoccupied and keep themselves from going crazy. Morgan can at least tend to their farm, while Hilarie Burton is making masks for healthcare workers to keep busy. Serratos seems to be enjoying some great alcoholic beverages, but that’s probably true of most of us.
It’s a cozy series, highlighted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton’s meet-cute story. In fact, it was JDM’s Supernatural co-star, Jensen Ackles, who introduced the two. Burton was staying with Ackles and his wife, and they all decided to go out to an Irish Pub for the night. “There we were, sitting, the three of us,” Ackles says. “And then I convinced [JDM] to come down the street and meet us for a drink.”
“[He] did, and [he] pulled up in his Harley, and we were sitting there in this front window,” Ackles continues. “And Hilarie sees this guy get off the bike in slow motion, take his helmet off and throw his hair. It was all very surreal, and [he] walked in, and [Hilarie and JDM] locked eyes, and that was pretty much the rest of the evening. And then Jeff, very smoothly says, ‘Why don’t you guys come over and check out my brand new pad.”
Ackles and his wife, Daneel, in fact, made a diorama of their first night together, which features JDM and Burton making out on top of a car. The art project, however, had to be blurred out for television.
Meanwhile, Christian Serratos and her husband, David Boyd, singer for the alt-rock band New Politics, are using their quarantine time to do couples therapy, and the two have gotten a lot out of it, according to Serratos.
Friday Night In with the Morgans airs Friday nights on AMC, at least for the time being. Returns dates for The Walking Dead and the final two episodes of Supernatural have not yet been announced.
