Warning: SPOILERS for the Frasier episode “The Squash Courtship of Freddy's Father” are ahead!
Anyone who watched the original Frasier will remember that Harriet Sansom Harris’ Bebe Glazer was a devious and unscrupulous woman. The woman resorted to all kinds of trickery and deception while working as Frasier Crane’s agent, both to his benefit and hers. Well, two decades later, nothing’s changed with her. In fact, while reuniting with Harris’ Bebe in the latest episode of the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive Frasier revival series, we also met her daughter Phoebe, played by Rachel Bloom, and it turns out that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The A-story of “The Squash Courtship of Freddy's Father,” which dropped today on the 2024 TV schedule, saw Kelsey Grammer’s character trying to ascertain if Phoebe was his daughter given that he and Bebe had a fling around the time Phoebe was born, and the younger woman also shared the same interests as him. Well, needless to say it was all a long con, which we’ll more about soon. However, having been fortunate enough to see this episode last month before the Frasier Season 2 junket, I was able to get Grammer and co-showrunner Joe Cristalli to open up about Bebe’s return and bringing Bloom, a Frasier “superfan,” aboard.
What Kelsey Grammer Said About The Latest Frasier Episode
As Kelsey Grammer shared when I asked him what it was like working with Harriet Sansom Harris again for the Frasier revival (one of the best Paramount+ shows), she and him go way back, long before the original Frasier days and even before he started playing Frasier Craine in Cheers. These two attended Juilliard together, and event in those days, Grammer could feel Harris giving off the Bebe vibes, telling me:
It was sort of classic Frasier-esque, wasn’t it? The character of Bebe Glazer, she’s a one-off, but the surprising thing about it is I’ve known Harriet since she was 18. I was 18. We went to school together, and she played that role from the time she was 18 years old. She was that kind of weird, wonderful, twisted woman, and she just knows how to play them. When we were doing plays together at school, she was doing Madame Arkadina in The Seagull… and it fit her. She wasn’t 57, she was 18! She’s a magnificent actress and a wonderful person. Whenever I see her, it’s such fun.
Then there was Rachel Bloom, who’s best known for co-creating and starring in the TV series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and whose other notable credits include The School of Good and Evil and Reboot. Although Kelsey Grammer wasn’t nearly as certain about how Bloom would do on Frasier, he was ultimately impressed by her performance as Phoebe, saying:
Rachel came to the show… I didn’t know where to come down in terms of, ‘How is this show going to work?’ I wasn’t sure it was gonna work. She kicked it. She did a great job.
Indeed she did. For most of the episode, Phoebe was emulating Frasier Crane to make it seem like she was his daughter in the midst of her joining her mother in figuring out the publishing plan for Frasier’s memoir. By the end of the episode, the jig was up, as Bebe had devised an elaborate ruse to convince Frasier to revive his talk show. Fortunately for Phoebe, she still impressed Frasier with her knowledge of his memoir and her plans for publishing it, so he requested she join his team. However, there was still one last surprise to deliver, but before I get to that…
What Joe Cristalli Said About The Latest Frasier Episode
When I spoke with Frasier showrunners Joe Cristalli and Chris Harris, the former told me about how they’d been planning for a long time to have Bebe Glazer come back, and they knew Rachel Bloom would be the perfect person to play Phoebe. In his words:
We’ve been talking about that one since Season 1. We knew we wanted to bring Harriet back to play Bebe, and then immediately we were like, ‘Well, she should be doing something deceitful. So let’s give her a daughter.’ And we came up with that con in Season 1. And we knew right away, because we know Rachel, we’re friends with her, but we’re also fans of her work, and we knew she was a superfan of Frasier. And she kind of has a Bebe Glazer feel to her. She kind of looks like Harriet. It all just lined up really well ‘cause she really wanted to do it, and it was really just getting Harriet and Rachel’s schedules.
It probably would have been easy enough to find a way to fit Bebe and Phoebe into Frasier Season 1, but that batch of episodes was more sparing with its special appearances. Bebe Neuwirth reprised Lilith Sternin in the seventh episode, and Peri Gilpin came back as Roz Doyle in the Season 1 finale, which paved the way for her to recur in Season 2. But Chris Harris said this about why they decided to hold on Bebe and Phoebe until this current season:
But also knowing that Season 1, we don’t want to bring back all of these characters, we wanted to wait until at least Season 2. What Rachel did standing toe to toe with Harriet and Kelsey in those scenes, playing basically three different versions of herself throughout the episode… we’re very fortunate with how that one turned out, ‘cause that was a tall order for a lot of people.
It is indeed fortunate that Rachel Bloom was able to appear, because in the final moments of this Frasier episode before the credits started rolling, Phoebe’s true nature was revealed, and the actress nailed it. Once Frasier was gone, Phoebe started using her real voice, which sounds just like her mother’s, and these two are now playing an even longer game to get Fraiser back on TV. Here’s what Chris Harris had to say about this episode’s many twists and turns:
It was tricky because we wanted the audience to get ahead of it, but we wanted the audience to get ahead of it in a way that wasn’t actually correct because they knew it was going to be duplicitous, but which part is duplicitous? Is it really her daughter? Is it really his daughter? It was a lot of fun twists and turns that hopefully are delightful to watch.
Like Frasier Season 1, Season 2 is comprised of just 10 episodes, so it’s doubtful we’ll see Bebe and Phoebe again in the latter half of this season unless they’re being saved as a surprise. However, if Paramount+ greenlights Frasier Season 3, then my fingers are crossed we get this duo back again to give the title character even more headaches. If that happens, we’ll let you know.
