In episode 1 of Season 2, titled “Casseroles and Casualties” and released on Friday, Feb. 4 (WARNING:SPOILER ALERT!!) we see the ambulance rush to Spring River Medical Center as best friends Maddie (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott) and Helen (Heather Headley) are praying together. Next, we discover that Maddie’s son Kyle (Logan Allen), who is too young to drive, grabbed his older brother Tyler’s (Carson Rowland) car keys at a high school party and in a fit of anger, left a party and was joined by Jackon Lewis’ younger sister, Nellie (Simone Lockhart). This is made all the worse since there is a deep-seated rivalry between the Townsend and the Lewis families that goes back to Maddie’s childhood. The respective families were soon called to the crash site and headed to the emergency room. Everyone speculated that Tyler Townsend and Dana Sue’s daughter Annie Sullivan (Annaliese Judge) may have been in the car. Everyone’s first question is “Is Kyle all right?” The answer? Yes, although he has some injuries. As the families gather in the hospital waiting room to hear the results, it turns out that Nellie, the passenger, has cuts and bruises, and was saved by her seatbelt, while the hospital’s orthopedist reveals that Kyle suffered a full dislocation of his right knee cap and they were monitoring him for a concussion. Kyle also had visible bruises on his forehead. With his mom at his bedside stroking his forehead, Kyle says, “I ruined it. I ruined everything.” Maddie continues to comfort him. Family friend and ER doctor Howie Young (Shawn Passwaters) tells the families that their teens “were very lucky tonight,” because despite the injuries they were not “life-threatening.” Sweet Magnolias Author Sherryl Woods, one of the executive producers, has been asked by friends, family, and fans the looming question of who was in the car but remained tight-lipped. “I know that most viewers are just sitting on the edge of their chairs waiting to hear who was in the car,” she exclusively told Parade.com. “But I am just now watching the finished episodes and seeing all the bells and whistles for the first time along with everyone else.” Woods said that the major difference in Season 2 over the first season is “all the viewers know the characters now. They’ve gotten comfortable with the main characters and they know the basic thrust of the story… Whether they’ve read my books or not, they know Maddie, they know Dana Sue and they know Helen, and they at least have a hint at what the relationships are going to be. But I think there are some really raw, realistic emotions going on with some of the storylines as they develop over the season.” For Woods, Season 2 is filled with special moments—the aftermath of the car accident, rites of passage, and other precious moments—that remind us what is important in our lives. “It’s about taking time to reevaluate all of the things that we’ve made so important that in the overall scheme of life are very little more than nuisances when you stop and take a step back,” Woods says. She adds, “I think in the last couple of years with the pandemic, where we were so often frustrated, and still are in many ways so often frustrated by the things we can’t do and by restrictions and all these kinds of things, if you take a minute and say, ‘But look at how I’m blessed versus what some other people have gone through with people who have been in the hospital and real tragedy. I’m in pretty good shape.’ I think we’ve all had those moments where we have to do a little bit of self-examination and take a look at what’s really important.” Next, JoAnna Garcia Swisher Totally Gets Why Sweet Magnolias Is Hitting a ‘Soft Spot in People’s Hearts’
