The Four Seasons showrunners made a “terrible error”, but the twist paid off

Netflix’s new show, The Four Seasons, based on the 1981 Alan Alda movie, follows three couples who go on vacations together once every season. The couples are: Claude (Marco Calvani) and Danny (Colman Domingo), Jack (Will Forte) and Kate (Tina Fey), and Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) and Nick (Steve Carell). The situation becomes complex with Anne and Nick’s divorce.

Disclaimer: The article contains spoilers about the death of a major character in the show.

Carell’s Nick dies due to a car accident in the penultimate episode of the series, leaving the group shocked just as it had come to terms with his divorce from Anne, and his new relationship with the young dental hygienist, Ginny.

However, in a Collider interview the creators of the show shared that Nick’s death felt like a mistake. Co-creator Tracey Wigfield said:

"We regretted it immediately. When we were shooting the show, and it was too late, we were like, “Why have we done this?”"

She added:

"He's so wonderful both to work with and on the show. We made a terrible error."

While it felt like a mistake, co-creators Lang Fisher and Wigfield agreed that working with Carell was a wonderful experience, but that they had to kill off Nick as it was the right decision for the story.

More on this in our story.

Nick’s death was a significant decision that helped The Four Seasons story further

While The Four Seasons is based on Alan Alda’s movie of the same name, several new plotlines were added to the eight-episode series. In the original 1981 film, the character of Nick survives a terrible skiing mishap. However, in the Netflix series, Nick dies due to a car accident. This change actually helped the story, as the creators shared how they wanted to depict the reality and spontaneity of life through the series. Nick's death played a huge part in ushering that spontaneous change.

In the same Collider interview, co-creator Lang Fisher talked about their decision to kill Nick. Through this loss they wanted to depict a real-life situation where people lost friends, and also how just as Nick had decided to live his life on his own terms, the tragedy struck, showing the unpredictability of life. Fisher stated:

"The challenge of adapting the film is that we had eight episodes, so we obviously had to add more plot. The decision to have Nick die was one we thought about for a while. Middle age is a time in your life where you're acting younger than you are, but then there are the realities of actually getting older, and things do happen. In real life, you do lose friends. The thing that's beautiful about Nick is he's taking his own life into his hands. He's like, “I need to live. I want to feel alive.”"

He continued:

"We wanted to show someone who was having a midlife crisis, but actually making a decision for himself to live the life he wanted to live. I think that that is the tragedy of it is that he finally figured out what he wants. Also, just to show that these friends loved him so much and were struck by the suddenness of it, and that is how it happens in real life."

The decision to kill Carell’s character rendered a real-life scenario to the story, where a group of long-time, middle-aged friends lose one of their friends and support each other to overcome their grief. It gave the series a perfect ending.

More about The Four Seasons

The new Netflix comedy series, The Four Seasons, premiered on May 1, 2025, and is based on the 1981 film by Alan Alda, who appears in a guest role as Anne’s (Kerri Kenney-Silver) father, Don, in the series.

Not just Alan Alda and other popular actors who star in the show, the Tina Fey-created show also has appearances from Julia Lester, Taylor Ortega, Jack Gore, and Ashlyn Maddox, among others.

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Stream all the episodes of The Four Seasons on Netflix.

Also Read: The Four Seasons cast and character guide: Who plays whom in Netflix's new miniseries

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