Norman Lear’s All In The Family: Where are they now?

The thing that made All In The Family great was wonderfully, socially conscious entertainment. No virtual signalling, just wonderful entertainment without many pitfalls. 

Archie Bunker’s mother Sarah Longstreet was a serial terrorist, who both knocked up and married his unlucky dad David for money. Said dad was also a mean bigot, even though his much colder hearted wife treated him much worse than others, which explained why he in turn neglected their also unlucky kids (a lot) until a few years before he passed away in regret. Fred Bunker became quite a pervert, but was nonetheless an amicable divorcee later on. Youngest brother Philip Bunker was a real computer nerd, and their much older sister Alma was a b movie actress. 

Joey Stivic became a commuting accountant with a wife, a daughter and a pet cat. 

When Good Times very happily ended in 1979 after a few years of relatively poor scripts and blandly executed episodes, the characters ultimately became different from what they were. 

Florida sadly had her fate coming from the start of her life; albeit one which remained unnoticed until after the show really ended. After the finale, she was bludgeoned into the void by her own, even more virulent, JW kin, themselves also responsible for abandoning her in the first place. Not only was that situation sick, it was also really questionable. 

The formerly (at times) irresponsible JJ got a formerly irresponsible ex hoodlum girlfriend, albeit one who’s only four years older than him, and also a nerd. Optimistically, they’d have been slowly and steadily showing the incredible queer hots for each other, all the way through marriage and having fraternal twins together. 

Thelma and her husband Keith have a nerdy son, who also has a son of her own with an anime fan wife whom he met at uni and whom he is married to. 

Michael Evans renounced his own militant angry young man status for quite a while, perhaps because he was witnessing his more militant former friends become way too drunk to control themselves properly, and that experience might have scarred him and his life quite a lot. He became a calmer but still firm political activist after the show ended, even as he’s been diagnosed with mental health issues as well.