The Untold Truth Of Superstore

In late March 2021, NBC's endearing, sharply written, and unashamedly weird series Superstore came to a close after six seasons. Created by Justin Spitzer, who spent the first three seasons as showrunner, Superstore explores what it's like to work at a big-box store, from the experiences of the store managers to the floor supervisors to the lowest-level employees. Together, they keep Cloud 9 running.

With a talented cast led by America Ferrera, Ben Feldman, Lauren Ash, Mark McKinney, Nichole Sakura, Nico Santos, Kaliko Kauahi, and Colton Dunn, Superstore carved out a unique and memorable place for itself on NBC's primetime lineup. It's a seriously goofy, yet deeply heartfelt series that manages to balance social commentary with some of the most offbeat jokes seen on primetime TV in recent memory. From the fictional lifespan of Cloud 9 stores to some of the series' funniest running gags, this is the untold truth of Superstore.

Before Superstore ever got off the ground, the cast and crew needed a place to film the pilot ... and they ended up settling on a real store that also happened to still be in business.

According to a feature in Twice, before a soundstage was built for Superstore, the production used a real Kmart in Burbank, California to shoot the pilot. This presented some pretty unique and hilarious challenges. As the store's real manager at the time, Carrie Ricketts, told Twice, the store remained open during filming, with real employees and customers wandering around during the process. Despite Ricketts' efforts to change Kmart signage to Cloud 9 material, you can still spot some Kmart branding throughout the pilot. Moreover, the real customers really didn't understand what was going on.

"Besides being actors, the cast of Superstore almost became honorary Kmart associates after being asked a bunch of times where certain items in the store were located," Ricketts revealed. "They were good sports though, and always helped our members find something despite not working for Kmart." All in all, it sounds like a pretty weird experience, which fits Superstore's vibe perfectly.

Every Cloud 9 floor employee sports a crisp blue vest over their street clothes and a brightly colored name tag. Presumably, you would expect to see a character's real name represented on that tag. However, one character bucks this tradition over and over again, creating one of the show's funniest and subtlest running jokes.

Amy Sosa, played by America Ferrera, always tries to be as professional as possible while she's on the job ... except for one thing. She always has a different name tag on. Amy, a private person, never wants customers to address her by her real name, since they're complete strangers, and so, with the exception of a few episodes in season two, her name tag never says "Amy." While some of these names are pretty normal, like "Ramona," "Margaret," and "Christy," there are also some unique selections, including "Selena" (when she's dressed as the late pop star for Halloween), "Rowena," and, of course, "Poot." Next time you watch Superstore, definitely keep an eye on Amy's name tags.

Superstore might seem like a casual comedy – maybe even the sort of thing you put on in the background, while you do something else. But it's actually important to pay close attention to everything that happens on Superstore, especially the interstitial cuts between scenes.

What sort of jokes are hidden in these cuts? Here's a sampling: A bride-to-be making sure a dress doesn't clash with her court-mandated tracking anklet, a joke about absurdly long receipts for just one item, containers of Parmesan cheese and bleach that look way too similar, lost children (whose activities run the gamut from using a training toilet in the store to gorging on candy to struggling to free their head from a chair), a pair of mysterious twins who quickly vanish from view, and a customer taste-testing a candle. The interstitial gags in Superstore are nothing short of amazing. Ranging from utterly absurd to believably bad behavior, these in-between scenes are a work of art, and well worth keeping your eyes pinned to the screen to catch.

Sometimes, when a network comedy tries to tackle a real societal issue, the entire endeavor can feel like a "very special episode" — cheesy, forced, and awkward. However, Superstore excels at bringing real problems into its narrative, whether it's discussing the difficulties of being a working mother (as when Amy and Cheyenne are denied paid maternity leave), the issue of unions within a huge corporation, or, most memorably, immigration. Viewers were shocked during the fourth season finale when Mateo, an undocumented immigrant, is deported.

In the aftermath of the finale, Vox critic Emily VanDerWerff addressed the show's skill at handling sensitive topics with style, humor, and sensitivity, calling the entire series "a wildly funny and poignant capitalist tragedy." Not only does the show handle social issues well, VanDerWerff noted, but it also has a lot to say about the corporate world of retail as a whole. "It doesn't matter how much the store's workers like or support each other if the company that issues their paychecks fundamentally doesn't care," VanDerWerff wrote. "That balance between interpersonal affection and corporate indifference underscored Superstore's entire ethos and its best storylines." Superstore walks a tightrope of tone right from the beginning, and according to esteemed critics like VanDerWerff, it pulls that balancing act off.

Superstore ended with an abbreviated sixth season in 2021. But the cast and crew didn't initially know the show would end this quickly, according to a feature in Entertainment Weekly. Showrunners Jonathan Green and Gabe Miller even had a seventh season planned. Ultimately, they decided to close out the sixth and final season with the closure of the Cloud 9 store. But their initial plans for the show's future remained in their heads — and ultimately, in fans' heads as well, after they detailed them to EW.

Beyond bringing America Ferrera back, whose departure was announced at the end of season five, Green and Miller also reworked their plans for the store's evolution into the finale. "When we thought it was just going to be a season finale, we had already been leading to the store becoming like a hybrid fulfillment center and in-person store," Miller said. "The final shot of the season would've been a wall going up and dividing the store, and we were leading toward taking our co-managers and having [Dina] in charge of the fulfillment center part of the store and Glenn in charge of the in-person part of the store, and dividing some of our employees and seeing what that's like in season seven. That was already part of our plan, but we just adapted that for the series finale." Sadly, Superstore didn't continue, but Miller and Green concluded the story perfectly.

Some of the very best things about Superstore are, undoubtedly, the relationships between characters, which blossom throughout the series. They all receive closure in the series finale: In a flash-forward narrated by Garrett, Jonah and Amy finally start their life together, Glenn starts his own business (and hires Mateo and Cheyenne), and eventually, the entire gang gets back together for a sweet backyard barbeque.

As it turns out, that get-together happened in real life, with COVID-19 precautions in place. According to Variety, the cast had a socially distanced wrap and watch party in Ferrera's backyard after filming concluded. As Ferrera sweetly put it, "It was such a joyful, awesome group of people that no one ever wanted to leave."

Feldman, her eventual on-screen husband, agreed: "I think this show was about the family that you are sort of forced into, or the family that you kind of fell into and chose to stay ... And that's definitely what Superstore was, and that's what this cast is to me. We're all extremely close." Knowing that the relationships on Superstore transcended the on-screen story is pretty special. Hopefully, this bond will lead to many reunions throughout the years to come.