The Wonder Years boss always knew Season 1 would end with an homage to the original series

Deadline

"When Lee Daniels, Mark Velez, and I first talked about who we wanted the Williams family to be and how we wanted them to be different from the Arnold family, we decided we really wanted to shine a light on what would have impacted Black families in a unique way," says Saladin K. Patterson, who created the reboot. "We knew we wanted to tackle things like civil rights and the Vietnam war. We decided early on that Bruce would come back, but we wanted to show how difficult it was for Black soldiers and all the extra baggage they were carrying. Bruce says he felt more racism here at home than when he was in the military overseas, which is why he reenlisted. But we also wanted to talk about the sacrifices all soldiers make, to their minds and their bodies."