Mom has ended its run with an emotional series finale, but one person who wasn't on hand to bid the show farewell was Anna Faris.
The actress, whose character, Christy, was written out of the popular CBS sitcom last year after season seven, had not made any appearances during this final eighth season. While the show has continued to succeed by focusing on Christy's mom, Bonnie (Allison Janney), some fans were still hoping Anna would at least make a cameo during the finale that aired Thursday, May 13.
After the show aired, showrunner Gemma Baker spoke with a number of media outlets to share insight into why the Scary Movie star wasn't involved as the show called it quits.
As Gemma explained to Deadline, the show's team opted not to reach out to Anna, given their sense that both the performer and character had already been given closure. For her part, Anna has not yet commented on social media about the finale.
"I think, first of all, we really just wanted to honor Anna's decision to leave the show," the sitcom's co-creator said. "So, that wasn't a discussion. But there were so many things that we wanted to address that we didn't get a chance to. Perhaps, if we had a little more time we would have gotten a chance to address those things. But I do think we addressed the big questions that our audience has in the last few episodes."
Gemma went on to say she believes that Christy and Bonnie are still close, despite Christy having headed to Georgetown for law school. "I like to think that she also got into a happy and healthy relationship and that she is very much still a part of her mother's life and her friends' life," the writer shared. "We didn't see her in the finale, but she is still part of that group."
In addition, TV Line quoted Gemma as saying, "We felt that it was important to honor [Faris'] decision to leave the show. The audience knows that Christy traveled a great distance over seven seasons and overcame so many obstacles in order to follow her dream of becoming a lawyer, and it felt like that story had been addressed in a satisfying way, so we didn't revisit it for the finale."
Instead, the finale centered on Bonnie attending the wedding of Jill (Jaime Pressly) and Andy (Will Sasso), not to mention her dealing with husband Adam (William Fichtner) getting diagnosed with cancer.
There was a brief reference to Christy when Bonnie mentioned her daughter while speaking to a new member of her Alcoholics Anonymous group. "We're both sober, and we love each other," Bonnie said. "She moved, but my point is my point."