Watch out world, Zoey and Aaron are grown as Grown-ish officially says goodbye.
Yara Shahidi and Trevor Jackson have starred as Zoey and Aaron, respectively, since the season 1 premiere on Freeform in 2018, which was a spinoff of ABC’s Black-ish. The characters, who had an on-off romance, graduated in respective seasons 3 and 4. The final seasons of Grown-ish saw Zoey and Aaron take on postgrad as the show shifted to focus on Zoe’s brother Junior (Marcus Scribner) as he followed in their footsteps and matriculated at the fictitious California University.
The show’s series finale, which airs Wednesday, May 22, will bring back Zoey and Aaron for one last hoorah.
“I’m really happy with how it wrapped because I think so much of what we were considering walking into the last episodes was, ‘How do we show that Zoe’s a different person?’” Shahidi, 24, exclusively told Us Weekly at the Grown-ish series finale party in Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 21. “Even though this is a relationship we visited and revisited time and time again, ‘What makes [Zoe and Aaron] feel different? What makes us feel like we’re sending them off to live an interesting, wonderful, fulfilling future life off of the show?’”
According to Shahidi, the Grown-ish writing team did “an excellent job” in demonstrating how “these two people [came] together” in a new way that had not been explored in previous seasons.
During the final season of Grown-ish, fans had seen glimpses of Zoey and Aaron’s highs and lows. Zoey was passionate about her move to New York City and saving Anti-Muse, the fashion brand started by her ex Luca (Luka Sabbat), while Aaron was pursuing a teaching career in L.A. The couple broke up early in season 6 and Aaron began dating Edie (Kelly Rowland) before reuniting in the penultimate episode. In the episode, Aaron popped the question to Zoey, who abruptly left the room before answering the question.
Jackson, 27, is also proud of where the characters end in the series finale.
“I think it went great,” he told Us on Tuesday. “I hope the fans are happy.”
Not only will the fans be thrilled by the ending, Jackson is too.
“I think we all kind of landed on what we thought would be the best,” he explained to Us, noting he “briefly” spoke to Shahidi about the characters’ final arc.
As Shahidi and Jackson wrapped Grown-ish after six seasons, they were overcome with emotions.
“I’m grateful today is just a celebration because I feel like we’ve had our emotional moments closing out the show,” Shahidi told Us of the premiere party. “I feel like we’re ending on a high being able to celebrate 100-some episodes, having a last moment to all gather together but it’s been so special and being able to return to close out the season was such a wonderful experience.”
With countless episodes of television available to the public at all times, it is a major milestone when a show airs 100 episodes or more. Shows like Riverdale found that success by gaining an audience based on their connection to the Archie Comics. As Riverdale prepared to air its 100th episode, creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa noted […]
She concluded, “This experience ushered me into becoming an EP and its ushered me into this next phase of life. I think knowing that I’m gonna know these people forever makes it a lot easier.”
Jackson is equally “emotional” and “happy” about the end of the show.
“I’m sad, but it’s like a sadness of, like, accomplishment. You know, when you thought you weren’t gonna make it and you made it,” Jackson said. “Everybody here put so much work in to tell these amazing stories and I’m honored to be in their company and rejoice with them and celebrate with them. I feel great.”
The Grown-ish series finale airs on Freeform Wednesday, May 22, at 10 p.m. ET and streams the next day on Hulu.
With reporting by Lanae Brody