‘The Night Shift’ Boss On That Surprise Finale Ending, The Mystery Of Annie & More

The finale of ‘The Night Shift’ left us with so many questions… some good, some not so much. Luckily, creator and writer Gabe Sachs gave HollywoodLife.com most of the answers.

Warning: if you haven’t yet watched the season four finale of The Night Shift, you will be spoiled ahead. The final episode of the summer was a game-changer for pretty much every character; Kenny was finally getting married; TC chose San Antonio over Syria (or maybe Jordan over Amira?); and Paul and Shannon both left the hospital, separately. Overall, this season took a different route when it came to the relationships, focusing on what wasn’t said.

“We always try to put romance in there, but maybe so it feels as real as possible, so we see development of relationships — sometimes we’ll talk about it, sometimes we won’t,” Gabe Sachs told HollywoodLife.com in an interview, adding that when it comes to TC (Eoin Macken) and Jordan (Jill Flint), it’s all about the faces.

While Amira (Rana Roy) was thrown into the mix this season, and TC clearly cared about her, the truth came out at the end. In the final moments of the episode, after leaving San Antonio to go back to Syria, TC changed his mind — he returned to SAM and reunited with Jordan, admitting he wasn’t ready to leave. So what’s next?

While the renewal news won’t come for a few months, we hopped on the phone with Gabe to find out the plans he and co-creator Jeff Judah had if the show should get picked up for a fifth season.

The ending warmed my heart, because I always root for TC and Jordan. Was that the plan all along?
The fact that you had that reaction makes me feel that that was the right way to deal with the romance through the season. You had these unanswered questions, you think, ‘TC’s going to be TC, he’ll be gone, that’s it, and I accept that.’ Throwing in the twist that he comes out of the van at the end, it’s earned. We did do a take that he doesn’t come out of the van, though.

The most powerful TC/Jordan scene was them at the bar, talking about San Antonio & Syria. Was that Jordan saying she’s still in love with TC or that she’s ready to let go, because I got both vibes.
It’s like reading a book — we want people to interpret it the way people see it. It’s really satisfying to us that were not saying, this is what it is. It’s great that you get a taste of both — is she finally at the point where she realizes this is who he is, even though she’s always known? Is she actually closing the door on that chapter? I don’t think we ever want to close it. We want everyone to feel it. That’s whats so complicated about their relationship.

Shannon and Paul ended in a good place, but went separate directions. What’s in store for their future?
We have no idea! You can end a season where everything sewn up, and you know where they stand, but we feel like that’s not the way to do it. We feel like the way to do it is have questions about what is gonna happen. They’ve never had a perfect relationship — they come from very different backgrounds.

I have to talk about that storyline with Annie that I’m still not over; we know a PI was hired, but then we never heard anything again. Did you purposely avoid it?
I swear there was nothing done on purpose with Annie! Believe me, there were a lot of discussions. There might have been something in the very end of the show, but we chose not to because we felt that the ending had a lot of questions in a good way. And I think the importance was in TC and Jordan’s relationship, and seeing where the others were and what everyone was dealing with now. If we’re picked up, I promise it will be addressed and we will see what happens. But I think this felt right. It would have been after TC/Jordan and it felt like that was the ending.

What about Cain? Do you have an idea of what happened with him?
We love Mark Consuelos but truthfully, he’s doing two shows. It became an availability issue. He’s a regular on Riverdale and we would love him on our show but that’s shot in Vancouver. It’s not like LA to Vancouver an easy flight. It’s a different beast to get him to Albuquerque where we shoot. So we are leaving it up in the air and that’s another meaty thing we can address if we get to season five.

You won’t find out about a status for a few months — have the talks of storyline already begun?
We’re always thinking and talking about what would be interesting. It’s always about when do we pick it up — do we pick it up right after, or do we pick it up two months later? Those are how the conversations start. I think that we have a lot of stuff to answer which is great. You want that, to be able to go in and answer stuff. At the same time, you go, is this the opportunity to add additional characters? Do we get more stories? We start thinking of that first, then we go back with a map of all our characters and we start making decisions from there.

HollywoodLifers, what did you think of The Night Shift finale?