'Frasier' Revival Definitely Has More Guests With Bebe Glazer’s Return, Rachel Bloom As Daughter
Season 2’s guest cast is now at eight for the Kelsey Grammer-starring continuation
Fuck me, Kels Grammery? The second season of Paramount+’s Frasier revival is making likeliest its deepest cut yet for its returnees from the original series. Harriet Sansom Harris, who averaged an episode a season as Frasier Crane’s agent, Bebe Glazer, across the 11-season original series run, is set to guest star in season 2, and now she has her daughter Phoebe along for the ride, played by Rachel Bloom.
The show starring Kelsey Grammer back in the title role describes the “delightfully devilish Bebe Glazer, one of the show’s most iconic characters,” as “known for her dramatic flair and outrageous Machiavellian maneuvers. Bebe will stop at nothing to get what she wants.” She first appeared in season 1’s “Selling Out”, where introduced as Bulldog’s agent she first gets into business with Frasier. She previously mentioned a daughter, relating it to Frasier’s quest to afford getting Freddy into Harvard, even so early it’s unclear if the timing matches up to be Phoebe. It seems her age vanity was something of a running joke, as in the original series finale she claimed to have a 40-year-old son, used to imply that her cosmetic surgeon does very good work. It of course remains to be seen how Phoebe fits into all that. Speaking of Phoebe, she has “inherited her mother’s indomitable charm”, and “boasts a magnetic personality as well as a taste for the finer things.”
Harris is a recent Emmy nominee for guest actress for her role in Max’s Hacks, and will next be seen in the limited series Long Bright River. Previous credits include Desperate Housewives, American Horror Story, and the Marvel Studios Werewolf by Night special, with films including Licorice Pizza, Phantom Thread and Americana, starring Sydney Sweeney and Paul Walter Hauser, which awaits wide release after premiering last year at SXSW.
Bloom is an Emmy and Golden Globe winner for creating, starring as Rebecca Bunch in, and songwriting for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, with recent roles including recurring as Elaine Levitch in Julia, starring as Hannah Koreman in the single-season Hulu sitcom Reboot, and guest-starring on Paramount+’s other revival of a Seattle-set series, iCarly. Interestingly, both actresses have been involved in crossovers between Arrowverse series Supergirl and The Flash, with Harris as Sinead in the first, Supergirl season 1’s “Worlds Finest”, and Bloom writing “Super Friend” for The Flash’s season 3 musical episode “Duet”.
Harris as Glazer joins other returnees including former client, KACL sports alum Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe, played once again by Dan Butler, Edward Hibbert once again as food critic Gil Chesterton, and Peri Gilpin now recurring as producer-turned station head Roz Doyle. Bloom joins new guests Amy Sedaris as Dr. “Doc” Stathos, “a municipal therapist with a down home, scattered veneer” who works with the firefighters at Freddy’s firehouse and a fan of Frasier from his talk show days, Yvette Nicole Brown as Olivia’s sister Monica, and Patricia Heaton as bartender Holly. Falling somewhere in the middle is Kelsey Grammer’s actual daughter Greer Grammer as Roz’s daughter Alice Doyle.
In addition to Jack Cutmore-Scott as Frasier’s son Freddy and Toks Olagundoye as Olivia, Harvard’s head of the psychology department, the main cast also includes Frasier’s Harvard-attending nephew (and thus Freddy’s cousin) David, played by Anders Keith, Alan, played by Nicholas Lyndhurst, an old Oxford buddy who persuades him to stay in town and become a Harvard psychology instructor, and Jess Salgueiro as Freddy’s friend Eve, a single mom who becomes his ex-roommate when Frasier poaches him from across the hall. Midway through production, the season’s executive producers are showrunners Chris Harris and Joe Cristalli, as well as Kelsey Grammer, Tom Russo and Jordan McMahon. The producing studio is CBS Studios in association with Grammer’s Grammnet NH Productions.
Source: Variety