Bel-Air Season Finale Introduces SPOILER as Will Smith's Father

Today's season finale of Bel-Air brought in Will's father far earlier than did the original Fresh Prince of Bel Air -- and did so in style, casting veteran comedian Marlon Wayans in the role. While the original Fresh Prince saw Will's dad introduced a few seasons in, resulting in one of the show's most famous and touching scenes, Bel Air has subverted expectations not only by bringing him in early, but by revealing that he had not actually abandoned his family, as Will (and the audience) believed. Instead, the finale revealed that Lou Smith was convicted of a violent crime, and asked Will's mom and Uncle Phil never to reveal that fact to his son.

Now out of prison, Lou shows up on Will's doorstep in the finale, setting up what will presumably be an emotionally charged second season all around. Showrunners T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson told Deadline that the decision was made, in part, because of the format change between network sitcom and streaming drama.

"Bel-Air is complete reimagining of Fresh Prince and we wanted to upend expectations and not drag it out," Brady said in the interview. "Several times throughout the season, Will had made mention of not having a father, and growing up without a dad and how Uncle Phil fulfilled that role. Sometimes he said it to justify self-destructive behavior, other times to explain why he would keep a distance. We wanted to upend audience expectations by having him be challenged, having this man show up again in his life and discover that the story he had been told his whole life, that he had built an identify around, wasn't true."

"It had to be accelerated because this is one of the things that comes with taking a sitcom and turning it into a drama. In a sitcom you can gloss over the fact that Will was meeting his rich relations that he hadn't seen in years," Newson added. In this one, you have to explain why there was this rift in the family. It's a natural question, those stories have to come out."

You can read the full interview at the link above, in which they get into a lot more details about plans for season 2 and the reaction Will is going to have to the revelation that his whole identity is based on a lie.

You can see the complete first season of Bel-Air on Peacock.