Spin-Off Goals: Could ‘Longmire’ lead into new story featuring Cassidy Freeman’s Cady?
We’re here today with our second installment in our ongoing Spin-Off Goals article series, and we figured that it would be appropriate here to touch on a show that has been long established as a CarterMatt favorite: “Longmire.” We love the setting for the show, the characters, the Native American representation, and the overall vibe of something that is modern, and yet feels at the same time a throwback to a different time in television.
We know that the series is getting set to start production of season 5 for Netflix later in the year, and the good news is that there doesn’t seem to be any apparent end in sight. Given that the series of Walt Longmire books by Craig Johnson is ongoing, there’s never a limitation insofar as story goes. With that being said, is there a way to keep the soul of the show going whenever it does end? That’s what we wanted to explore here with Cassidy Freeman’s character of Cady Longmire. As we mentioned, these are just ideas, and we’d obviously never want Cady to leave for as long as “Longmire” itself lasts.
Why Cady? – While we are of the belief that almost any show can be spun off in one way or another, it is a little more difficult for a creative idea to present itself with “Longmire” than it would be for some other shows. It’s hard to say that you can create a separate show about a Henry or a Vic without just moving them to a new city and having it feel like extremely similar. You want a spin-off to have an essence of familiarity, but also something unique so that it can stand on its own two feet. Cady’s a perfect character for that in that she’s intimately familiar with the entire “Longmire” cast, but has a separate career and ambitions that extend beyond just working for the local Sheriff’s department. It’s reasonable to think that she could move on eventually in her career and take on challenges elsewhere that would make for an interesting new show.
The idea – As we’ve seen on “Longmire” proper before, Cady is a character who understands the challenges of Native Americans in the modern day better than most in the legal world; she had to beg a federal prosecutor to even look at the case of Gabriella Langton after hang-ups kept it from being prosecuted properly. Our idea would be to move her to a larger venue and allow her to do more of her work on a grander scale than just the individual. Maybe you have her represent several tribal communities on a more federal level to fight for specific rights, or you simply extend the outreach of the people she defends beyond a small town. If she were to move to a larger city there would still be occasions where the original cast could be featured, and you’d still have the emphasis on the Native American people that makes the series and its message so unique. There is so little ground on this subject that has been covered within a courtroom setting to date.
Could it actually happen? – This is one of those cases where we’re really plucking an idea out of nowhere, so who knows? We want the original series to last for many more years first, and then maybe Netflix will survey the climate and realize that there could be a further story to tell. If Johnson gave the idea his blessing, then maybe you run with it to keep the spirit of the original alive and give Netflix a fantastic fictional legal drama to go along with their other true-crime products.
Do you think that this idea could work, or do you have any other Spin-Off Goals for “Longmire” down the road? Share in the comments.