Chesapeake Shores season 5: Show EP talks writing out Jesse Metcalfe

Entering Chesapeake Shores season 5, it’s pretty clear that the exit of Jesse Metcalfe will be a top story. It’s hard for it not to be. We’re talking about one of the show’s most famous stars; not only that, but a good chunk of this story revolved around the Abby – Trace relationship. We’re hearing good things about how it evolves without Trace around, but losing him is still a hard pill to swallow.

So how exactly did this exit come about? Is this something that the producers had a lot of time to prepare for? Not exactly. In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, show EP Phoef Sutton makes it clear that they all learned about this fairly late in the game:

[Jesse’s exit] came fairly late in the day. We had to go up to Vancouver Island to quarantine for two weeks before we were going into pre-production. So it was in the middle of that that Jesse decided he was going to bow out. No matter how smoothly you think it’s sailing, there’s something that’s going to throw a monkey wrench into the thing and there’s going to be some challenge you’re going to face. And that was it. That was ours. So we just nodded, rolled up our sleeves and got to work on that. The advantage of it was that it gave a whole new area to work with, to make the show fresher and newer. The disadvantage was that you had to do it really quickly.

Clearly the writers found a way to work things out, but we have to imagine it was a difficult process here and there. Robert Buckley is going to come on board as a new character in Evan, but rest assured, he’s not going to be Trace 2.0. He’ll bring his own energy to the world and in the end, season 5 is going to be more about the entire ensemble. Abby will still be the focus, but there will be a lot going on in the end.

Related – Be sure to get some more news when it comes to Chesapeake Shores right now

What do you most want to see when it comes to Chesapeake Shores season 5?

Have any specific hopes for what you want to see coming up? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, remember to stick around — there are some other updates that you don’t want to miss. (Photo: Hallmark Channel.)