Queen Sugar ended with the finale of its seventh season because the show’s creator, Ava DuVernay, felt like she had said what she wanted to through the characters.
Queen Sugar was on the air for a total of seven seasons and managed to make quite an impression during that time.
In the end, Queen Sugar concluded after its seventh season because all of the most important stories had played out and come to a conclusion and it was better for the show to end than for it to become tedious.
Is Queen Sugar worth the watch?
Queen Sugar is an on-screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Natalie Baszile, created by Ava DuVernay, that airs on Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
The show is overly melodramatic at times, but it is always topical in its portrayal of Nova, Charley, and Ralph Angel Bordelon’s lives.
The show first started airing in 2016, but now, five seasons later, Queen Sugar has won two NAACP Image Awards among its many other accolades.
The show was also one of the fan-favourite dramas on the network until the finale aired in 2022.
Why did Queen Sugar end?
Just before the finale of the sixth season of Queen Sugar, it was announced that it had been picked up for its seventh season.
This seventh season would be extra special, as it would have 13 episodes as opposed to the previous seasons of the show, which all only had 10, but it would also be the series’ final season.
This seventh season started airing on 6 September of 2022 and concluded with the final episode, titled “For They Existed” on 29 November 2022.
Although many fans were heartbroken when they found out that the series would end after its seventh season, the people behind the show were not as sad.
Oprah Winfrey, who acts as executive producer on the show, explained in an interview after Queen Sugar had ended that she knew it was the right time to end the series because they had not reached a point where people would tell them that they should have let go a long time ago.
The show’s creator and co-executive producer, Ava DuVernay, later confirmed this by saying that they decided to end the show because she realised that she did not have anything left that she felt she needed to tell through these characters.
In the end, Queen Sugar ended simply because it was the right time for the story to end.
Moreover, under the direction of Ava DuVernay and all of the other cast and crew members who worked on the show, it had already had the impact and told the story that it needed to tell.
How did Queen Sugar end?
The final episode of Queen Sugar really wrapped up the narrative nicely by answering some of the questions that fans had been wondering about throughout the show and featured a good balance between happy endings and realistic stories.
One of the best parts of the final Queen Sugar episode was that Glynn Turman reprised his role as the spirit of Ernest Bordelon to guide the characters through this last episode.
By the end of the episode, Ernest tips his hat to the Bordelons continuing his lineage.
How did Ava DuVernay approach the ending of the show?
Ava DuVernay returned as the director and writer for this last episode of the show, and in more ways than one, this created the perfect bookend ending for the series.
She approached this episode more like a film than a single episode, since it was 90 minutes long.
However, she has explained that she did not want to do anything that would feel unnatural or out of the norm for the characters while tying all of the loose ends.
Why were fans so sad that Queen Sugar ended?
Queen Sugar was an important show in the hearts of its audience in more ways than one. The show tackled difficult issues such as labour exploitation, transgender rights, and the Movement for Black Lives throughout its seven seasons.
Beyond that, the show empowered cast and crew member behind the scenes as well.
In addition to the fact that Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey had been adamant throughout the course of the show that it would be a realistic portrayal of real black lives, the show also gave 41 other female filmmakers the opportunity to make their impression on the show.
When you take all of this into account and consider the fact that the show had many heart-warming and endearing characters and storylines throughout the years, it is easy to understand why fans were so sad when the show ended.