Why Kaitlyn Dever's Eve Baxter Left Last Man Standing

2011 was a huge year for Kaitlyn Dever. Though she was only 14 at the time, the up-and-coming actor booked small parts in two high profile movies ("Bad Teacher" and Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar"), popped as tough Kentucky cookie Loretta McCready in the magnificent second season of "Justified," and joined the main cast of Tim Allen's new sitcom "Last Man Standing." That's quite a range of shows and films, and this ensured Dever would get to flaunt her burgeoning talent all the way across the demographic spectrum.

For families with young viewers, "Last Man Standing" was the kind of relentlessly inoffensive sitcom they could watch together without worrying there'd be a ribald gag or profanity. Say what you will about Allen (and I'm quite certain the cocaine dealers he snitched on in 1978 to avoid serving a length prison sentence have said plenty about him), he knows what his audience expects from him, and, as we know from the legitimately great work he's done ("Galaxy Quest" and the "Toy Story" movies), the man knows his way around a joke. He possesses an amiable presence and ace comedic timing.

Dever does, too, so it's hardly surprising to learn that the veteran Allen quickly identified her talent and took her under his wing over six seasons while she played his youngest daughter on "Last Man Standing." If you've watched this show, you know this warmth extends to their characters. Allen's Mike Baxter is a manly dude who, of his three daughters, obviously likes Dever's tomboy Eve the best. So why did Dever leave the show after season 6?

At the close of its sixth season, "Last Man Standing" was the second highest rated sitcom on ABC. The series was a cinch for renewal. So the entire television industry was left gasping when the network unceremoniously brought the axe down in 2017.

Some suspected this was a response to Allen going on "The Jimmy Kimmel Show" and comparing his plight as a Hollywood conservative at the outset of the first Trump administration to Germans who opposed the Nazis in 1930s Germany. Regardless of the rationale, the show was dead, which left its cast and crew scrambling to find new gigs.

The timing couldn't have been better for Dever. She'd just entered her twenties and was set to showcase her considerable talents in projects that were a tad weightier or more clever than "Last Man Standing." So she went out and booked roles in "The Front Runner" and "Beautiful Boy," which wound up being a problem for Allen and company when Fox announced they were bringing back "Last Man Standing" for its seventh season.

It was too late at this juncture to get Dever back as a series regular. Allen understood, but he couldn't help but get melancholy over the departure of the young talent he'd helped nurture. As Allen told Fox News in 2020:

"We had an episode ... where we had to change Eve's room and it reminded me of real life. You know, your kid's not coming back. They'll visit, they're not going anywhere, but they're not coming back to the bedroom they grew up in. It was a really hard one for me to do based on my oldest daughter when she left."

Happily for Allen, Dever wasn't gone for good. She became a recurring cast member, and made sure she was available for the emotional series finale. Showrunner Kevin Abbott wouldn't have had it any other way. "Tim [Allen] and Kaitlyn have always had such a special relationship," he told The Wrap in 2021. "Not that he didn't have it with the rest of the crew and everything, but I think he felt very fatherly to Kaitlyn."

Dever has since become one of the brightest lights of her generation via terrific performances in "Booksmart," "Rosaline" and "No One Will Save You." She will no doubt be reinforcing this perception over the next two months with her portrayal of Abby in "The Last of Us" season 2.