Reba McEntire, legendary country singer and star of the long-running sitcom Reba, is returning to ABC after her 2012 flop Malibu Country. This time, reports Variety, she’ll be starring in an hourlong drama created by the man behind Desperate Housewives, Devious Maids, and the final (excellent) seasons of Golden Girls, Marc Cherry.
The show is in the early stages of development and doesn’t have a title yet, but there was a “bidding war” for its pilot script, which sounds—in true Cherry fashion—absolutely bonkers. Writes Variety:
The untitled hourlong series is described as a “Southern Gothic soap opera” set in motion after a horrible, suspected act of terrorism happens at a Fourth of July parade in the small town of Oxblood, Kentucky. The FBI sends a cocky agent of Middle Eastern descent to investigate and he teams up with the mercurial local Sheriff to uncover secrets far darker than either could have ever imagined.
I hope Reba is playing Oxblood’s first-ever female sheriff—a no-nonsense widow named Sheila Attaway—whose late husband died (or did he?) 10 years ago in a barn fire when the moonshine he was secretly distilling blew up, I hope she may or may not know the people responsible for the terrorist attack, I hope she has at least one queer child who resents her but moves back to town from Austin after the attack makes international news, and I hope she says things like, “You can churn that damn butter ‘til the cows come home but don’t you dare think I’m ever gonna spread it on my biscuits.”
Please pick this up, ABC.
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