It’s been years, but honestly, talking about Mistresses Season 4 still feels like picking at a scab for anyone who spent four summers glued to the screen. You remember how it felt. The show was this addictive, glossy, slightly ridiculous soap opera that somehow managed to make us care deeply about four women making questionable life choices. Then, ABC swung the axe.
It wasn’t just a cancellation. It was a betrayal.
By the time we hit the finale of Mistresses Season 4, the show had already survived the massive departure of Alyssa Milano after the second season. We’d navigated the move from Los Angeles to Vancouver (disguised as LA) and then the shift to filming in the actual, humid heat of Georgia. We were invested in Joss, Karen, April, and the newcomer Harry-drama. But the way it ended? That’s where things get truly weird.
The Karen Kim Problem and the Death That Broke the Show
If you’re looking back at Mistresses Season 4, you have to address the elephant in the room: Yunjin Kim’s exit. Karen Kim was arguably the soul of the show, or at least its most chaotic element. Watching her go from a grieving therapist involved with her patient’s son to a woman exploring a "throuple" and then, eventually, meeting a tragic end was a wild ride.
In the penultimate episode of the season, Karen falls over a balcony. It’s sudden. It’s jarring. And frankly, it felt a bit cheap to many longtime viewers. Why kill off one of the core four? Rumors at the time suggested it was a creative decision to shake up the potential fifth season, but instead, it served as a grim punctuation mark on the entire series.
Fans were left reeling. One minute she’s finding her footing as a mother and a writer, and the next, she’s gone. This wasn’t just a plot twist; it felt like the writers were burning the house down before they even knew if they were moving out.
What Really Happened in the Mistresses Season 4 Finale
The finale, titled "The Show Must Go On," is a fever dream of "what ifs." We fast-forwarded. We saw Joss (Jes Macallan) and Harry (Brett Tucker) finally getting their act together, heading toward a "happily ever after" that felt almost too clean for a show built on infidelity and secrets. April (Rochelle Aytes) finally got her pregnancy news, which should have been a moment of pure triumph.
Then came the cliffhanger.
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A mysterious woman shows up claiming to be "Karen Kim."
Wait, what?
The showrunners, Rina Mimoun and KJ Steinberg, clearly had a plan for Season 5. They weren't done. That final scene was meant to be the hook that forced ABC's hand for a renewal. It backfired. Instead of a renewal, we got a "cancelled" notice a few days later, leaving us with a dead lead character and a literal imposter standing in a doorway.
Why the ratings dropped
It’s easy to blame the writing, but the logistics killed Mistresses Season 4. Moving production to South Carolina and then Georgia changed the "vibe." The show lost that crisp, California light. Plus, the audience was aging out or moving to streaming. In 2016, the live-plus-same-day ratings for the season averaged around a 0.6 in the 18-49 demographic.
Compare that to the first season's 1.2 average.
The math didn't work for the network anymore. They saw a show that was getting more expensive to produce with a shrinking audience. It didn’t matter that the fans who remained were incredibly loud on Twitter.
The Casting Shuffles Nobody Talks About
We need to talk about Jerry O'Connell. Bringing him in as Robert was a stroke of genius for the fourth season. He brought a specific kind of levity that the show desperately needed after the heavy drama of the earlier years. His chemistry with Yunjin Kim was one of the few highlights of the final stretch.
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But the revolving door of men in Mistresses Season 4 was dizzying.
- Harry’s career took him to Italy and back.
- Marc’s struggles with his music and sobriety felt like a retread of earlier seasons.
- Jonathan Cake’s departure as Dominic left a hole that was never quite filled.
When a show starts focusing more on the "men of the week" than the core friendships between the women, it loses its tether. The original appeal was the "Sisters before Misters" vibe, even if the sisters were occasionally sleeping with the misters they shouldn't have been. By the end, the friendship scenes felt shorter, replaced by frantic plot movements to wrap up individual arcs.
The Legacy of the "Lost" Season 5
Because Mistresses Season 4 ended on such a massive question mark, fans have spent years speculating what would have happened. Rina Mimoun actually went on record in interviews after the cancellation to explain that the "new" Karen Kim was likely an imposter or someone tied to Karen's past, meant to stir up trouble for the remaining three women.
They wanted to explore grief. They wanted to see how Joss, April, and Harry would function in a world where their anchor was gone.
Instead, we are left with the Georgia-filmed episodes that feel like a transition to nowhere. If you rewatch it now on Hulu or Disney+, you can see the seams. You see the moments where the budget was stretched, and the moments where the actors seemed to know the end was near.
Practical Steps for Rewatching or Discovering the Series
If you're diving back into Mistresses Season 4, or watching it for the first time, go in with your eyes open. It is a product of its time—the mid-2010s "summer soap" era.
1. Watch for the fashion, not the logic.
The costume department stayed winning until the very last frame. Even when the plot didn't make sense, the shoes did.
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2. Appreciate the Joss and Harry chemistry.
Whatever you think about the show's writing, Jes Macallan and Brett Tucker had genuine sparks. Their arc in the final season is the only thing that feels like a completed journey.
3. Prepare for the "Karen Kim" cliffhanger.
Don't Google it. Just let the weirdness of that final scene wash over you. It's one of the most audacious "screw you" endings in network television history.
4. Check out the UK version.
If the American ending leaves you feeling empty, go back to the original British Mistresses. It’s darker, shorter, and has a much more definitive conclusion. It stars Sharon Small and Sarah Parish and offers a completely different flavor of the same concept.
5. Follow the cast.
Most of the stars moved on to massive projects. Jes Macallan became a fan favorite on Legends of Tomorrow. Yunjin Kim continued her incredible career in Korea and the US. Seeing them in other roles helps dull the pain of that Season 4 finale.
The reality is that Mistresses Season 4 wasn't the best the show had to offer, but it was ours. It was a messy, high-heeled sprint toward a finish line that turned out to be a cliff. While we never got the resolution we deserved, the sheer audacity of those final thirteen episodes ensures that we're still talking about it nearly a decade later.
To get the most out of the experience, treat the fourth season as a "what if" experiment. Don't look for the tight plotting of Season 1. Look for the performances of women who knew their show was on the bubble and decided to go out swinging. If you can embrace the camp and the soap-operatic leaps of faith, the final season remains a fascinating, if frustrating, time capsule of 2016 television.