With the series finale of FX’s hit drama, Snowfall, we found out what happens at the end with Franklin, Leon, Louie and more.
The episode concluded with a time jump that sees Franklin Saint (Damson Idris) and Leon Simmons (Isaiah John) walking around the neighborhood and stumbling upon a movie that’s in production. This comes after Franklin has hit rock bottom after never getting his money back. Leon, returning from a trip to Ghana, pays Franklin a visit to check on him and to also offer him a job to get back on his feet and save the house. Franklin opposes this idea, and in a moment pulling all of the heartstrings, he thanks Leon for being his best friend and tells him how proud he is of him. He then walks off as Leon cries and calls his name.
But back to the movie that they saw in production– the moment was a nod to series co-creator John Singleton’s hit film Boyz In The Hood, which was released in 1991— the same year Snowfall ends.
Showrunner Dave Andron shared how the John Singleton tribute came to be with The Hollywood Reporter.
“You know, we were just looking for a way to kind of tip our cap to him. This show brings his career full circle. His career started by telling the story of South Central,” Andron explained. “I know Boyz n the Hood opens in the ’80s but really, it was South Central in the early ’90s and what had happened and this story was very much the prologue to that how did that neighborhood become the place that we inhabit in Boyz n the Hood so it felt only right. We jumped time there obviously in the last couple of acts. September 1990 is the [Los Angeles] Times paper that Leon walks by. It’s a real LA Times from September 1990 when he starts shooting Boyz n the Hood. So it just felt like the proper way to bring his oeuvre full circle and to really hand it off.
Andron gave a similar response to Deadline when asked about it.
“If you think about it in some ways, Snowfall is a little bit of a prologue to Boyz, and how the neighborhood got to the point you experience in the film,” he said. “We did jump forward in time a number of years and we didn’t put an actual date on it but the newspapers that Leon steps on the street are from September 1990, which was when John started filming Boyz in the Hood. It was very intentional to drop back into that moment in time to pick up that story where John picked it up with the movie. That was a little tip of the hat to him.”
He also spoke about how the last moments of the show also set up the potential spinoff, which is said to be in early development and would star Gail Bean, who may reprise her role as Wanda.
Leon tells Franklin that they are back in LA so that Wanda can get her start in the music industry.
“She came back from Africa at the very end, and even though we don’t see her we hear about her from Leon, she’s back and she’s got a dream,” Andron said. “She’s gonna have a whole life and she’s found something she’s passionate about, something she wants to be a part of. This for me goes back to the Wanda whom we first met. If that creativity and heart go into music, I feel like she might actually be able to carve something out.”
He added, “And you know, West Coast hip hop is about to explode. So telling the story of what’s been going on in South Central in the way that Singleton told it with Boyz N The Hood. And so as you know, it leaked out there that we may try to continue telling that story because it felt worthy of Snowfall, and I felt worthy of John Singleton. So we’re gonna see if we can figure that out.”
No word yet if Isaiah John would join Bean in the spinoff.
Earlier this season, Amin Joseph and Angela Lewis both spoke to S&A about what they hoped for Snowfall‘s legacy.
“I hope [this] is not the final tribute. I know that John was working on many things other than just Snowfall,” Joseph recently told Shadow and Act. “I feel like this is one of the bound volumes of his legacy that is now closing a chapter. It’s coming to an end, but I would hope that his legacy endures well beyond Snowfall. And like you said, it was already established 20, 30 years before this show. So [he was] just a monumental man that’s given so much to TV and to the cinema.”
Lewis told us, “I hope people are proud of the work that we’re doing and able to, and what the show set out to do. It was created to give a message, to say something and to reveal a part of history that had been hidden for a long time in the community and the world at large. I think some people in our community knew about the CIA’s impact on and involvement in bringing crack cocaine into the community, but it was not a really widespread nugget of information. So I feel good that we were able to bring that to the forefront and talk about it. And then in our storytelling, with vivid characters and amazing acting abilities and amazing writing, I hope that our community and the TV-watching community at large has been impacted in a way that we get to see ourselves do really amazing work. Franklin will live on forever, I hope, and Louie will be in there too. I like to think that we left a lasting impression on the culture.”
