Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘That ’90s Show’ takes the audience back to Point Place, Wisconsin, where Kitty and Red Forman, once again, find a group of teenagers hanging out in their basement, as the nature of their relationships evolves to become more complex with time. The show finds its roots in ‘That ’70s Show’, with the original cast returning to reprise their roles. In some cases, it feels like the “picking up where we left off” kind of thing, but then there are some things that are thrown in front of the audience without a warning. The marriage of Michael Kelso and Jackie is one such thing. For the fans of ‘That ’70s Show’, the story ended with Jackie and Fez entering a relationship. Then how did Jackie end up with Kelso? Let’s find out.
Jackie Reuniting with Kelso
Jackie had been the part of two most-shipped romances in ‘That ’70s Show’. At the beginning of the show, Jackie was in a relationship with Kelso, which had quite a few ups and downs throughout the series. Later, however, she starts dating Steve Hyde, and their “polar opposites attract” situation ended up becoming one of the most beloved relationships on the show. Still, it felt as if Jackie and Kelso kept revolving around each other. No matter who they were with at the given moment, there would be a scene or two to confirm that they still had feelings for each other.
At the end of the seventh season, Kelso proposes to Jackie, but she refuses due to several reasons. Following this, Kelso leaves Point Place and moves to California. By the end of the eighth and final season of the show, Jackie and Fez confess their feelings for each other. Fez had been infatuated with Jackie since the beginning, and despite her initial prejudice for him, she, too, had warmed up to him. With both Kelso and Hyde out of the picture, Jackie wound up with Fez. But then, out of nowhere, she is with Kelso in ‘That ’90s Show’.
For actress Mila Kunis, this was just as shocking a revelation as for the audience. In a conversation with Access Hollywood, Kunis revealed that she was confused when Jackie was revealed to have married Kelso. “I called B.S. I was like, ‘My character would be with Fez.’ I think that I ended up with Wilmer’s character. Now we’re like 20 years, and now we’re married with a kid. And I was like, ‘I don’t know about this one,” she said.
For Wilmer Valderrama, however, the Jackie and Fez pairing never quite made sense. In an appearance on Today, the actor revealed that by the eighth season, the show had exhausted all possible romantic angles and “kind of ran out of everything.” “I was wearing funny outfits and all that stuff by the end of that season, so that’s why we’re like, ‘What would be the most random thing we could do? And I feel like that was it,” he said.
Valderrama’s thoughts about the finale were shared by many fans of the show who found Jackie’s pairing with Fez a poorly conceived angle. Despite Fez’s attraction towards Jackie, the two of them never had enough chemistry to actually lay the grounds for exploration, as opposed to her story with Hyde and Kelso. The final season was also considered the weakest of the entire series. So, it would make sense that the series creators would want to rectify some mistakes made there.
Due to no prospects of Hyde’s return, it would make sense that Jackie would end up with Kelso. They had more history together than any other character, and this included their many breaks and reconciliations, which doesn’t make it as surprising to see that they, once again, found their way back to each other. In one scene, Fez explains that shortly after they got together and went on a vacation, he caught Jackie talking to Kelso on the phone. After this, she left him and went back to her first relationship on the show.
