‘Mom’: William Fichtner on Becoming a Series Regular as Bonnie’s Beau

Mom’s sober matriarch Bonnie (Allison Janney) is finally catching a romantic break when the show returns tonight: Her on-and-off-again beau Adam (William Fichtner) is returning home early from his year-long work trip to Croatia. But the reunion isn’t all sunshine and roses.

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“We quickly spend a lot of time around each other,” says Fichtner, who is now a series regular. “And we start going through relationship growing pains.” The couple could have another issue on the horizon. “Adam drinks, and everybody else doesn’t,” Fichtner says. “I could see that being something to eventually address.”

In the meantime, Fichtner has nothing but praise for the Mom family—including executive producer Chuck Lorre, whom he worked with on Grace Under Fire in the mid-1990s—and has been relishing the opportunity to act in front of a live audience. “It’s like a play,” he says. “If you do something and it’s funny, they laugh. If you do something and it’s touching, you can hear a pin drop. You feel the audience take that ride with you. Those are my favorite moments.”

Mom, Season premiere, Thursday, Oct. 27, 9/8c, CBS