Reba McEntire To Reunite With Another Former 'Reba' Star On 'Happy's Place'

Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman will reunite with another former Reba star in the upcoming season of Happy’s Place, they confirmed on Tuesday afternoon (September 30).

JoAnna Garcia Swisher, who played McEntire’s eldest daughter on the early 2000s sitcom, is set to make an appearance on the new NBC comedy series. Garcia Swisher is the latest Reba alum to guest star on Happy’s Place, following Steve Howey (who played her husband and McEntire’s son-in-law) and Christopher Rich (Garcia Swisher’s father and McEntire’s ex-husband) in the first season of the show.

Reba premiered in 2001, and the finale aired in 2007. McEntire starred in the series with Rich, Peterman, Howey and Garcia Swisher, plus Scarlett Pomers and Mitch Holleman. McEntire played “a single mom of three, navigating life in a Houston suburb,” reads the show’s description on IMDb.

Now, McEntire plays Bobbie on Happy’s Place. Bobbie is “a tough but lovable woman who inherits her late father’s Tennessee tavern - only to discover that her new co-owner is also the half-sister she never knew she had,” per NBC. “They couldn’t be more different, but they’ll navigate this new life together... because at Happy’s Place, everyone is family.” The show also stars Peterman, McEntire’s real-life fiancé Rex Linn, plus Belissa Escobedo, Pablo Castelblanco and Tokala Black Elk. Guest stars Christopher Lloyd, Carol Kane and Cheri Oteri will play “three new hilarious characters,” and add “even more star power to the dynamite ensemble,” NBC confirmed earlier this month.

McEntire said in an interview with iHeartCountry earlier this year that the key to a successful sitcom is “the writing. If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage.” She said her showrunner and head writer tells stories in “a great voice of comedy and heart. …That’s what I love so much about the Andy Griffith Show, (for example), how he raised Opie – I used that raising my son – but it is very important to have heart in there. You gotta laugh, but you gotta cry. You’ve got to hit all of those emotions.

“I’ve got to listen to the arc of the second season, and it’s gonna be good,” McEntire teased later. “And all of the characters – and I do call us ‘characters,’ the actors, we are characters in our own right. We’re so diversified that we bring to the table something in real life that I think comes through on the screen. …We love each other. We respect each other’s opinion on things, their individual lifestyle, their background, their heritage. It’s a fun family.”

The second season of Happy’s Place will premiere on November 7.