Growing ever sweeter with each passing season, Netflix’s “Sweet Magnolias” premiered in 2020 and was renewed for season 5 in April 2025. However, as fans who have kept up with the romantic drama’s twists and turns know, the upcoming fifth season will be the show’s second one without one of the key players of the first three seasons. Chris Klein’s Dr. Bill Townsend is Maddie Townsend’s (JoAnna Garcia Swisher) former husband who starts out as something of an antagonist (being in the middle of a turbulent divorce with the main character will do that). While the two later somewhat reconcile, Bill remains something of a pot-stirrer for his entire time on the show.

Considering the role he plays, it’s fitting that Bill’s departure features not one, but two surprises. As season 3 comes to a close, he moves away from Serenity, South Carolina in a bid to reinvent himself. Such a development might have seemed like it left the door wide open for him to return at some point, but that doesn’t happen. Insted, season 4, episode 2 (“Practical Dreams”) bluntly informs us that Bill had a fatal heart attack offscreen.

In an interview with Glamour, “Sweet Magnolias” showrunner Sheryl J. Anderson revealed that the decision wasn’t a case of the actor asking to be killed off to exit the show. Instead, Bill had to die to serve the storyline:

“We wanted to just kind of turn the ship 90 degrees. It was so hard to tell [Klein], because we all love him, and he loves the show. But he understood and took one for the team, because it allowed us to tell stories that we wouldn’t have had had an entrée into otherwise.”

As Anderson noted in the interview, killing Bill wasn’t a choice made lightly. However, it was a necessary move because the makers of “Sweet Magnolias” wanted to infuse the show with a new sense of urgency that would cause everyone to reconsider their choices. As Anderson told Glamour: 

“Because it’s his death that makes all our adults, and especially our men, question what they’re doing with their lives. That theme of tomorrow isn’t promised. You get to a certain age, and when a friend of yours, who’s your age, dies, it’s always too soon, but especially when you are that age. You realize time isn’t on our side and think, ‘Am I doing what I want to do? Am I with the person I want to be with? What other changes do I need to make in my life?'”

The best way for a show to shake things up is to kill a prominent character — this is, after all, precisely why Yuri Sardarov’s Otis exited “Chicago Fire” in season 8. It’s only natural that “Sweet Magnolias” chose the character who was the furthest removed from the day-to-day life in Serenity, too. Besides, the way the show uses Bill’s death to throw the other characters’ lives in disarray is a fitting testament to the character’s role as an agent of chaos. 

“Sweet Magnolias” is available for streaming on Netflix.