Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Goldbergs season 10, episode 18.

While The Goldbergs season 10 might be the family sitcom’s final outing, one recent episode proved it was not too late for the series to solve one supporting star’s unclear role. The Goldbergs has struggled since George Segal’s passing in 2021. The veteran actor played Pops, Beverly’s father, for the first eight seasons of The Goldbergs, and his supporting role had a huge impact on the dynamic between the sitcom’s ensemble cast. Segal’s warm, funny Pops tempered Beverly’s excesses and Adam’s ambitions, as well as encouraging Barry’s idiosyncrasies and getting past Erica’s sardonic veneer.

It was almost impossible for any actor to replace the late, great Segal, although Judd Hirsch’s irascible Pop-Pop was an attempt to pull this off. This wasn’t aided by The Goldbergs season 10 killing off Murray since Pop-Pop was Murray’s father and thus his link to the titular family. When Jeff Garlin’s Everyman father was killed off, The Goldbergs season 10 had no clear use for Pop-Pop. Already, Hirsch’s spiteful grandfather was an inversion of Segal’s genial Pops and, while this was initially a funny surprise, a show as unabashedly sentimental as The Goldbergs had little use for such a cranky character.

The Goldbergs Season 10 Made Judd Hirsch’s Pop-Pop Work

Thanks to his irritable disposition clashing with the show’s sunny tone, The Goldbergs never really known what to do with Hirsch’s Pop-Pop since his introduction and had even less clue after Murray’s death. However, The Goldbergs season 10, episode 18, “Love Shack,” found an answer when Adam discovered that Murray’s father secretly harbored hopes of becoming a writer in his youth. Adam realized that this meant the pair had something in common, prompting Pop-Pop’s sweetest subplot. Pop-Pop finally embraced Adam as his grandson, and with The Goldbergs season 10 finale coming up soon, this redemption couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Goldbergs Made Pop-Pop & Adam’s Relationship Matter

Initially, Adam’s attempts to trick Pop-Pop into working on his sci-fi manuscript took some dishonesty. This blew up in his face when Adam’s writing group was much more critical of his grandfather’s literary efforts. Eventually, it took Beverly admitting to Adam that she over-praised him (a revelation that was some seasons overdue) for Pop-Pop to finally admit to Adam that he was a superb grandson. This was arguably the first time that Pop-Pop showed some real connection to the series' lead character. As the narrator of The Goldbergs, Adam is the show’s heart, but he rarely plays a central role in Pop-Pop’s earlier subplots.

This is in part because The Goldbergs moved away from Adam somewhat in recent seasons, but it is also because Adam’s geeky optimism clashes badly with Pop-Pop’s mean-spirited vitriol. While this might seem like a classic sitcom dynamic, the fact that Pop-Pop recently lost his son and Adam lost his father made the prospect of the two characters fighting too sad to be funny. As a result, it took a story as silly as Adam unearthing his grandfather’s sci-fi manuscript, the manuscript turning out to be explicit alien erotica, and Adam still supporting Pop-Pop’s attempts at creating art to give the character a sweet, funny story.

Murray’s Goldbergs Season 10 Death Made Fixing Pop-Pop Harder

Pop-Pop remained a big part of The Goldbergs even after his screen son Murray died in the premiere, which gave Hirsch even less to do with the role until “Love Shack.” This was a tricky problem for the creators of The Goldbergs to work around since the show is all about family ties and, as such, the eponymous clan leaving Pop-Pop behind after Murray’s death would have been absurdly callous. However, since Pop-Pop wasn’t an institution in their home like Segal’s Pops, his presence often felt awkward and forced in The Goldbergs season 10.

There are many reasons that The Goldbergs season 11 wouldn’t work, but the changes to the titular family’s dynamic after Murray’s death are one major factor. Pop-Pop was left with less of a role in The Goldbergs, and although “Love Shack” found a way to work around this, the character doesn’t have much else to teach Adam. Much like Barry moving in with Joanne and out of the family home in the same episode, “Love Shack” finally giving Adam and Pop-Pop something to bond over feels like a case of The Goldbergs season 10 attempting to tie up loose ends before the finale.