There isn’t a ton to say about Cyrus no longer being on the show, except a bunch of vague tweets that basically confirm, straight from the actor, that he probably won’t be on there anymore. There was this exchange:
‘Any Cyrus appearance in season 10 of TPB?’
‘No’
‘Well that sucks’
‘Yeah long story which I will reveal at some point but was written out because of it’
At another point someone had asked:
‘are you in season 11 of TPB? L’
‘no idea what their plans are but doubtful’
And at yet another point:
‘Just gutted @bernierobichaud wasn’t in it at all!’
‘I don’t think their plan is to bring him back.’
So that’s all that can really be said. We can’t make any assumptions. We just don’t have any details other than the Cyrus character, for whatever reason, is apparently done. Which kinda makes me sad, too. The boys have turned Sam into this stupid, goofy cartoon character in season 9, and then all of a sudden in season 10, he’s “Got my life back on track Sam”… which is both great because it harkens back to the old days, but also kind of lame because the constant flip-flopping is just poor character development and lazy writing. So, as far as recognizable villains go… that’s who’s left, outside of Lahey, of course. And I’m sorry, even though they reigned him in to be not so over the top this year, ‘Private Dancer’ isn’t a great addition to the show.
So, yeah… Lucy, Cyrus, and now J-Roc are gone. There’s obviously been cast changes before, but this time just feels really, really, really different. I know a lot of people have said negative things about Lucy being gone, and I know it’s probably easy to write her off the show from a writer’s perspective, but Ricky lives for her. And they were trying to have a baby. She’s been an integral part of the show. She just has. Cyrus to a lesser extent, but he’s still a villain we love to hate, and hate to love. J-Roc… man. I get what Torrens was saying in that podcast, but just a ‘spice’ of the show or not, I don’t think anybody can really imagine a season of this show without J to the R-O-C.
Another thing that’s troubling with all these changes is that, according to Torrens, filming may actually begin in late May for season 11. I’m assuming with Lucy and now J-Roc out of the picture, they’ve probably had to rework a loooot of scripts, if not the whole season. Not a whole lot of time to turn everything around and get your shooting schedule prepared. The boys can pull it off, I know, but it’s yet another thing to worry about.
The show obviously can last a long time… A lot of people will watch it as long as the stupid jokes keep rolling in, and so will I… but if they really want this show to keep going for a long, long time without feeling that long in the tooth, they need to reign this show back in to the ‘fake documentary’ days and stop going so over the top.