‘”The Goldbergs” series regular Wendi McLendon-Covey said on social media that the long-running ABC comedy series is simply trying its best to work around Jeff Garlin’s departure. The show has been heavily criticized for using previously shot footage of Garlin and CGI to insert the actor’s character into episodes, and the results have been bizarre for viewers. One takedown of the show posted by film critic Noel Murray drew a response from McLendon-Covey.

“They should either cancel ‘The Goldbergs’ or kill off Jeff Garlin’s character because the workarounds they’ve been using this season ain’t working,” Murray wrote on Twitter. The critic’s post included video from a recent episode in which Garlin’s character is awkwardly edited into a wedding episode.

“Thanks for the great suggestion Noel!” McLendon-Covey replied. “This season threw us for a loop because it’s hard to incorporate someone who doesn’t want to be there and wants to leave mid-scene, and we weren’t about to rewrite the second half of the season. We’re doing our best.”

Garlin exited “The Goldbergs” last December following a string of misconduct allegations against the actor and an HR investigation into his on-set behavior. He did not complete his work on the remainder of the show’s ninth season, forcing the production team to come up with methods to keep his character on the show in a reduced capacity.

As Variety exclusively reported, the producers decided to keep Garlin’s character on the show by using off-camera dialogue and unused takes pulled from earlier episodes, as well as previously shot images of Garlin. The actor’s stand-in is also used, shot from the back, in group scenes. Garlin’s stand-in had appeared in promotional materials for the show in the past, with the actor’s head superimposed on the other man’s body.

Variety has reached out for further comment on from Sony.

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