‘Last Man Standing’ Recasts Mandy and Boyd in Fox Revival

Last Man Standing has found its new Mandy and Boyd. Molly McCook and Jet Jurgensmeyer will play Mandy and Boyd in the new episodes.

When Fox revived the show more than a year after ABC cancelled it, Molly Ephraim chose not to come back to play Mandy.

Jurgensmeyer will play Boyd, the grandson of Tim Allen‘s character and the son of Amanda Fuller’s Kristin. According to Variety, Jurgensmeyer got the job because producers wanted to “age up” Boyd to make him around 12 years old in the new episodes.

McCook was recently seen on Netflix’s The Ranch as Darlene. She also appeared in an episode of Agents of SHIELD in 2013 and a Modern Family episode in 2014. She also appeared in a handful of The Brave and the Bold episodes in 2010. She is also slated to star in Good Trouble, the upcoming Freeform spinoff of The Fosters.

Jurgensmeyer is already an experienced child actor with more than 30 credits to his name. He appeared in episodes of Black-ish, CSI and the Will & Grace revival. He also had a small role in Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper and was in the 2016 Legends of the Hidden Temple TV movie.

While Ephraim and Flynn Morrison, who previously played Boyd, are not returning, the rest of the Baxter family will look familiar to Last Man Standing fans.

Of course, Tim Allen is back as Mike, but so is Nancy Travis as his wife Vanessa and Amanda Fuller as Mike’s eldest daughter Kristin. Hector Elinzondo, Jonathan Adams, Christoph Sanders, Kaitlyn Dever and Jordan Masters will also star in the new episodes.

The seventh season of Last Man Standing will debut on Fox Friday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. ET, the same timelsot it previously held on ABC.

The recasting news comes days after the show’s panel at the Television Critics Association press tour. Surprisingly, the network said the show will be free of President Donald Trump mentions, despite Mike’s conservative politics. This is likely a reaction to the controversy surrounding ABC’s Roseanne, where Roseanne Barr’s title character said she voted for Trump.

“The producers’ plans are simply not to address whether or not he might be a Trump supporter,” Fox Television Group chairman Gary Newman told the Television Critics Association. “That could change during the season, but there are no plans at this time. Clearly he’s a character with a conservative viewpoint.”

Before the TCAs, Allen told The Tribune he felt the show succeeded because they respected values people across the country still hold.

“We treated religion with respect. We treated the family with respect,” Allen said. “People go to church, you know, and we did church stuff. We did stuff about sitting down and having a meal as a family. But we didn’t make a [big] deal about it. We tried to respect and honor some values that seem to be beleaguered.”

Photo: Fox