The Hallmark Channel's series Good Witch ended its seven-season run Sunday with a history-making kiss between Joy (Kat Barrell) and Zoey (Kyana Teresa). It's only the second same-sex kiss to appear in Hallmark's original programming and the first to occur on a series.
Originally a movie, The Good Witch aired in 2008 and spawned several sequels until it was made into an episodic series in 2015. The series Good Witch centers on Catherine Bell's Cassie Nightingale (a psychic with magical powers), Bailee Madison (who left after the fifth season) as her daughter Grace, and the residents of the fictional town of Middleton. There, Cassie runs the Bell, Book, and Candle bed and breakfast.
Fresh off her stint as the lesbian sheriff Nicole Haught on Wynonna Earp, Barrell is Joy (with powers of her own), a designer who arrives in town in season 6to renovate the town's Davenport Mansion. She and Zoey, a firefighter, shoot off sparks that lead to the big kiss.
Hallmark Channel's first same-sex kiss occurred in December of 2020 between Jonathan Bennett and Brad Harder, who played a married couple in The Christmas House.
Prior to The Christmas House, Hallmark Channel was under scrutiny for pulling a Zola Wedding ad that featured a kiss between brides. Under pressure from anti-LGBTQ groups including One Million Moms, the Hallmark Channel pulled four ads from Zola that feature lesbian nuptials. But Hallmark kept two Zola ads that don't include the same-sex wedding narrative, which resulted in Zola canceling the entire campaign and severing ties with the network. Soon #BoycottHallmarkChannel was trending on social media.
The CEO at the helm when the ads were pulled, Bill Abbott, stepped down from the position in January 2020. The network then vowed to work with GLAAD to "better represent the LGBTQ community across our portfolio of brands."
Watch the milestone Good Witch kiss below.