Ben Feldman has spent five seasons of Superstore so far playing Jonah as he grew from a reluctant Cloud 9 employee at the bottom of the ladder to somebody in a serious romantic relationship, trying to form a union for the workers against corporate opposition, and delivering laughs. As it turns out, Superstore showrunners Gabe Miller and Jonathan Green originally had a different vision for Jonah as far back as the Season 1 finale, and it would have changed the entire show.
Co-showrunners Gabe Miller and Jonathan Green jumped on the Superstore cast's Comic-Con@Home virtual panel and started sharing some Superstore trivia that had never before been revealed, and Miller explained what could have been with Jonah at the end of Season 1:
One thing early on we had talked about why someone like Jonah would stay at the store. Was it just for Amy? Was there something else? At one point there was an idea that for the Season 1 finale, we would start at Cloud 9 corporate and we wonder why we’re there. What are we doing? And then we see Jonah walk in and reveal that he was a corporate spy infiltrating a Cloud 9 store to report on union activity. Obviously that would have been a very different show.
On the one hand, Jonah was very much the odd man out at Cloud 9 in the early days, usually played for laughs at his expense. He just wasn't as jaded as the rest of the workers, and he didn't give a whole lot of information about his history. In fact, his whole explanation for how he'd ended up at Cloud 9 was kind of hard to believe. It worked just fine since Superstore is a comedy, but it also could have worked for a reveal that Jonah was a spy.
Jonah as a spy would definitely mean a different Superstore by the time it hit Season 5. Assuming Amy and the others at the St. Louis Cloud 9 found out that Jonah is a spy, it's probably safe to say that the course of Jonah and Amy's love story would have been very different as well, if it happened at all. Jonah and Amy are going so strong as of the premature Season 5 finale that it's almost impossible to imagine how the show will write out America Ferrera's Amy without sending Jonah too, because why wouldn't Jonah go with her?
The showrunners spoke with CinemaBlend about the Season 5 finale, and they confirmed that Ben Feldman will indeed be back for Season 6 despite Jonah telling Amy that he would come to California with her and her kids when she took a high-paying corporate job. America Ferrera is also returning for the Season 6 premiere despite earlier reports that she would be leaving at the end of Season 5. The actress' finale arc was cut short thanks to the production shutdown, so she'll be back with Jonah for at least one more episode.
If you want to relive the early days of Superstore, in which Jonah definitely was not revealed as a corporate Cloud 9 spy, you can find the full series so far streaming on Hulu and Peacock Premium. If you're in the market for more TV options, check out our 2020 summer TV premiere guide and our 2020 fall TV schedule. Be sure to stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more Comic-Con@Home coverage!
