Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer Talks Roz’s Emotional Return in the Christmas-Themed Season Finale — Watch Video
Warning: This post contains spoilers from Thursday’s Frasier season finale.
Leave it to Frasier to wrap up the first season of its Paramount+ revival with a Christmas episode.
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Thursday’s season finale found Frasier throwing a lavish holiday party to distract himself from his grief he was still feeling over the death of his father Martin. It backfired on him, of course: He ended up with a room full of two dozen Christmas trees, a live goose and an out-of-tune kids’ string quartet. But he got the best gift of all when Freddy arranged for his old pal Roz — with Peri Gilpin reprising her role from the original Frasier — to drop by for a surprise visit. The two honored Martin’s memory by sharing a beer and catching up, and Frasier star Kelsey Grammer says their reunion was part of the plan all along.
“Of all the people in the legacy cast, I always thought we’d find a place for Peri somehow,” Grammer tells TVLine in the video above. His fellow co-star David Hyde Pierce, who played Niles, “decided he really just didn’t want to be part of the show again,” he notes, “but in terms of Peri, I always thought, ‘Oh, there’s gotta be room for her.’ Because we were always so close, you know, on the show.” Someone suggested a Christmas episode, “and people sort of responded to that, and we thought, ‘Well, that’s the place to bring Peri in.'” (Grammer would like to bring back Gilpin again, too, in a future episode if they can find “a reasonable justification for it.”)
Roz’s return “also upped the game for the character of my son, for Freddy. Because it meant he was aware that his father needed some love,” Grammer says, his voice catching with emotion. “It was the first Christmas he spent without his own dad, and that’s a big thing. That sort of absence is powerful. And so Freddy addressing that need for his dad was a very cool thing.”
Press PLAY above to hear more from Grammer, including Frasier’s tradition of memorable Christmas episodes, and grade the finale in our poll. Plus, tell us in the comments: Would you watch a Season 2?
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