Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman Revive ‘Reba’ Characters During Quarantine

Reba and Barbra Jean are back, y’all! Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman briefly revived their Reba characters this week for a mini reunion, imagining how their characters from the sitcom would be handling the current quarantine in a new social distancing sketch. Reba ran for six seasons and starred McEntire as Reba Hart, whose ex-husband Brock left her for Barbra Jean (Peterman) after they had an affair and Barbra Jean became pregnant with their son Henry. The short reunion clip began with Barbra Jean sitting in her closet and sending a virtual message to her friend Reba.

“Just wanted to check in and see how you’re holding up during this quarantine,” she said. “Girl, I’m going crazy. I’m hiding in a closet right now because Brock and Henry are driving me bananas. They have painted a giant checkerboard on the living room floor, and then they’re using frozen pizzas as checkers. I had to trade in all my Beanie Babies for toilet paper, and every day, I’ve started turning clocks back, like, 15 minutes so I can start drinking earlier! Me! Reba, I’m day drinking! It is a slippery slope, my friend, a slippery slope. And the worst thing is that you’re just down the street and I can’t come over and give my very best friend a hug! I mean, isn’t that just the worst?!”

Reba’s responding message came from her pantry, where she told Barbra Jean to keep it down. “Kids have been wanting me to play games all day long,” she said. “I’ve played more games than you can imagine! You know how much I like games, but I’m sick of it. Sick of it! You might even be a welcome visitor but we can’t, we’re in quarantine. So video chat me back or something. Here they come, I’ve gotta go.”

McEntire and Peterman starred on Reba from 2001-2007, and the duo has reunited several times over the years, including on television when McEntire guest-starred on the Season 4 finale of Baby Daddy in 2015. Peterman starred on the show as Bonnie, and before her character got married, she got a visit from her friend Charlotte, played by McEntire. In a featurette, McEntire said that acting together feels like “no time has passed at all.”

The two friends recently had an in-person reunion in December when Peterman visited Las Vegas to take in one of McEntire’s residency performances with Brooks & Dunn at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Dec. 15. To commemorate the evening, McEntire posted a shot of the two backstage, Peterman wearing a sculptural black dress and looking concerned as McEntire casually posed against a door beside her. “‘Sorry to bother you ma’am on your photo shoot, but do you know where I can find the nearest bathroom?’” McEntire joked in her caption, adding the hashtagged phrase, “never know who you will see in Vegas.”