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WMG / That '90s Show

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Fez and Jackie’s break-up is why the gang aren’t close anymore
According to Fez, Jackie dumped him in the middle of a vacation together to get back together with Kelso - and it’s clear from his mannerisms as he tells the story, Fez still holds some resentment over this, 15 years later. Consider that Leia and Jay apparently never met before the summer of '95 - it would seem that Eric and Donna took Fez’s side in the aftermath and cut ties with Jackie and Kelso.
  • More mundanely, it could just be life got in the way and they drifted apart.

Hyde moved away to somewhere far away from Point Place and doing something that makes him happy
I don't think Danny Masterson is ever coming back at all for obvious reasons, regardless the outcome of his trial, but I can see Hyde is living happily ever after doing something what he loved: Building a car that runs on water or something. I really hope the writers don't have him in jail or dead. Hyde definitely deserves a happy ending.
  • Alternatively, Hyde led a fulfilling life and career for himself during the 80s, only to die tragically. His death is what ultimately broke up the group. His grave will be a place of strife and reconciliation for his friends.

Midge didn't die. She just left Bob again
She's left him before, and it's an easy way to avoid mentioning her without bringing Tanya Roberts's death.

Hyde is in jail
Drug trafficking probably.

Jay is only a nickname.
While it is possible that Red and Kitty have never seen Jay, it is unlikely they have never heard his name. He has an Embarrassing First Name, and changed it to Jay during puberty.
  • His name will turn out to be Michael Jackson Kelso, named after Michael and Jackie.

Jay is not Jackie's son.
He is at least a year older than Leia, who was born in 1980, and Jackie is accounted for during 1975-1979. Kelso got another woman pregnant during one of his flings, and only learned later about it, but stepped up like he did with Betsy.
  • Mostly an argument from silence, but consider the following:
  • While Kelso and Jay make reference to the latter's mother, at no point does either of them name Jackie as such.
  • Jackie neither confirms nor denies Jay is her son.
  • Jay did not attend Kelso and Jackie's second wedding.
  • If we're being pedantic about continuity, Jay is too old to be Jackie's son as the latter would have been dating Hyde at the time.
  • Kelso's daughter Betsy was conceived during a random hook-up, and Kelso only found out about her later. It's possible that Jay's mother was another girl with whom Kelso had had a casual hook-up.

Donna does have a good day job.
How else would they survive as a family of three with the salary of a writer and a Star Wars-Professor?
  • The cost of living in the mid 90s wasn't nearly as out of control as it is now, and presumably, Eric and Donna went to university before those costs skyrocketed in the mid 1980s too and wouldn't be in as much student debt (even with Eric's MA or PhD). It's not at all impossible that an adjunct professor and a published author would make a decent living in a house that they purchased in the 1980s for comparably nothing, especially if they're in a suburb of Chicago and not in the city proper.
    • Eric has only just made adjunct professor, meaning he has at minimum a Master’s degree, possibly even a doctorate in a related field, most likely mythology. He may have been an extremely popular guest lecturer working a circuit before being hired full-time in Chicago, and likely has at least one successful book of his own covering the material of his course. Especially as the late 80s and 90s saw a boom of pop-culture related elective courses in universities.
  • Donna's writing could be connected to her day job. She could be a tenured professor (it's not hard to imagine her and Eric both being in academia, but Donna being far more successful) whose research lends itself well to publishing commercially.

Betsy Kelso lives with her mom. Brooke also doesn't like Jackie
This would explain why she isn't in Point Place or even mentioned.

Jackie was pregnant with Jay at the end of T7S
Owing to the on-again-off-again nature of Jackie and Kelso's relationship, there very well could have been several "one-time" flings we didn't see in the original story.

Fez doesn't mention how long he and Jackie were together when they went on vacation, so it's possible it was fairly soon after the end of T7S. Additionally, Fez only says he caught Jackie "on the phone" with Kelso, without stating what the conversation was about. This very well could be innocuous, and Fez is just irrational and jealous ... or Jackie called Kelso because she found out she was pregnant during the vacation.

Jackie did say at the end of T7S that she felt that Kelso was her soulmate, and while she could have gotten pregnant well before she and Fez got together, Fez may not have believed that. Maybe Jackie cheated, maybe she didn't, but Fez believes she did, and he broke things off with her when he found out she was pregnant.

Season 2 predictions
Assuming the show gets renewed, a few elements could be incorporated.
  • Michael and Jackie might appear more than once, perhaps to show some bonding with Jay.
  • Laurie will return (obviously being played by a new actress) and becomes either a cool or mean aunt to Leia, perhaps having her own children to bring with her
  • Hyde will be alluded to but without name-dropping him, like “that rebellious dumbass friend of yours”.
  • Hyde will return, but played by a new actor who looks barely like Danny Masterson, or not at all. Lampshaded by some dumbass saying "Boy, did you age badly", or "I've heard time on the inside can really change a guy" Once an Episode.
  • Ozzie will prove to the gang that Etienne is real, but they will be preoccupied with a different issue.
  • An episode where Eric and/or Donna are directly involved with whatever is going on with Leia.
  • Jay and Nikki will find out about Leia and Nate almost kissing.
  • Betsy Kelso will appear.
  • There will be a Take That! to That '80s Show.
  • Leo will make several more appearances, and continue to refer to Leia as "Patricia" (she'll correct him, he'll forget, and eventually she'll start answering to it)
  • I hope the old gang managed to meet the new gang for the first time. I can see the old gang telling them stories of what they did in the '70s. And probably smoke weed together.

There will be a Whole Episode Flashback detailing when Ozzie first came out as gay
Despite the '90s being a time period when gay people were only just barely starting to get accepted by society, the gang is surprisingly tolerant of Ozzie. A flashback episode will go deeper into that.
  • Society as a whole was less accepting than it is now, but most teenagers were pretty open. It's true that things like using "that's so gay" as a pejorative were common, but it was generally without any real malice. A group of teens in 1995 accepting their friend being gay is really not all that surprising.

Steven Hyde is Gwen's father

Depending on how much Fanon Discontinuity one cares to apply, Hyde was revealed, despite appearances, to be biracial. After his marriage ended, he engaged in a number of flings, including with Sherri. After his record store went out of business (because he spent more time getting high than actually managing the place), Hyde became a long-haul trucker, so he could be a drifter and get paid for it. As sometimes happens with lighter-skinned African Americans, the pigmentation skipped a generation.

There'll be more serious moments in season 2, and maybe even wayyyy more serious than the original series

The old gang meeting together onscreen for the first time in over a decade for a high school reunion and judging what Fez said about his break-up with Jackie (it honestly awfully sounds like Fez, Donna, Hyde, and Eric finally decided to cut ties with Kelso and Jackie), they ended up having a huge fight to the point of blows.

Also, season 2 could go Darker and Edgier, with an episode dealing with homophobia and Red might actually physically assault someone for a very good reason.

Also long shot, but I'm sure they might mention Columbine in a future episode. Time will tell, though.

Predict all the potential 90s references that the show will make in Season 2 and onward

As the show is set in July 1995, and it could go up to December 1999, what movies/TV shows/video games/musicians/celebrities/Real Life events will the show bring up as the show moves forward?

That '80s Show of all things will get a callback
Corey was implied to be Eric's cousin, so there are two possible scenarios:
  • It will be a Take That! towards the show. Maybe in one episode, Leia will try to become a musician, which prompts Red to compare her to "[his] dumbass nephew from San Diego."
  • A more positive reference with Glenn Howerton actually reprising his role as Corey.

Season 8 of T7S is non-canon to this series
Jay and Leia are both too old for 1979 to have happened the way it was shown in T7S season 8 (Jay would have to have been born during Season 8 of T7S and Leia would have to have been conceived before Eric returned from Africa.) The much-hated season 8 didn’t happen, Eric didn’t go to Africa (or maybe came back sooner,) and Kelso got Jackie pregnant that night Hyde caught them together in a motel room. Since her relationship with Fez has been referenced it is still canon, with Jackie probably ending it and going back to Kelso when she realized she’s pregnant.

Ozzie will come out to Red next.
Red's only response to this ask his opinion on the Vikings. Ozzie will admit he hates them and Red will praise him for it and then go back to what he was doing before Ozzie came out to him.

Ozzie will come out to his parents (or be outed to them, either accidentally or maliciously), but they won't be accepting
This would result in him moving in with the Formans, similar to Hyde in the original series.

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