HGTV star Meena Starsiak Hawk and her mother, Karen E. Lane, are returning to “Good Bones” months after Hawk went public with strained relationships.
The HGTV series “Good Bones,” which premiered in 2016, follows Hawk and Lane as they renovate homes in Indianapolis, Indiana, through their company, Two Ticks and a Hammer. Lane left the company in 2019 but remains a featured character on the show.
The series quickly became a hit for the network, as was its spinoff, Good Bones: Risky Business. In August 2023, Hawke announced that the series was ending and spoke about her strained relationship with Lane on the podcast “MINA AF.”
But HGTV announced Wednesday that a limited season of “Good Bones” will premiere in August, with both Hawke and Lane returning to the show, though they will be working on separate projects.
Business Insider looked back on Hawk and Rain's rise to fame and how their relationship has changed in recent years.
Representatives for Lane and Hawk did not respond to requests for comment.
Viewers got to know the families of Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Raine throughout the series.
Because Hawk and Lane's business was a family business, other relatives, including Hawk's siblings, began appearing on the show during its run.
As she and Lane explained in the HGTV video, Hawk has five siblings: brothers William and CR, half-sister Kelsey from her mother, and half-sisters Tad and Jessica from her father's second marriage.
Hawke and her husband, Stephen, married in 2016 and have two children, Jack, 5, and Charlotte, 2. The couple also child-sited for Jessica's daughter, Julie, for part of 2017, People magazine reported at the time.
In the HGTV video, Hawk and Lane described their family tree as “complicated,” but their blended family seemed happy to HGTV viewers as they transformed their hometown with a sense of love and community.
But Hawke revealed in August 2023 that things aren't so simple when the cameras are turned off.
Hawke said Lane's relationship with his two brothers was “difficult.”
During the August 28, 2023 episode of “Mina AF” titled “The Pain of Not Changing,” Hawke spoke about change and boundaries, revealing that her son's fifth birthday party made her think about how she wanted to approach relationships with certain members of her family going forward, including Rain.
Jack turned five on Aug. 9, 2023, and Hawke hosted a party for him three days later, as she shared on Instagram.
In a podcast recorded ahead of Jack's birthday, she said that while she's always invited family members to her children's birthday parties, this year she wasn't sure whether to invite them.
“My family is having a hard time and I've been trying to decide who I want to come to this party,” she said. “Will it affect my kids? Will they notice who's there and who's not? There are a lot of animals coming, that's all they care about. Am I being true to myself and my husband by drawing appropriate boundaries for certain people to be here and not be here?”
Mina Starsiak Hawk co-stars in “Good Bones.” Rachel Luna/Getty Images
She went on to say that she wasn't sure if she wanted to invite her mother and some of her siblings due to the “current state” of their relationships.
“My mom and I don't get along very well,” she says. “My brother Tad and I don't get along very well. My brother William and I have a kind of nonexistent relationship. It's complicated, even though it shouldn't be. We don't have a lot of interaction and the last time we did it wasn't very good, which was probably a year ago.”
Hawke also said that she wanted to prioritize inviting people outside of Jack's family to his birthday party, people who are involved in his daily life.
“Not only are her mother and two younger brothers not regularly involved in their lives, they don't get along,” she said, adding that the family is usually kind to each other and will get together for family events even when there are tensions, but mainly because it's important to her father.
“Whenever there was an event, we'd all pretend to be adults and be nice to each other, go to the event, and then go back to our little corners of the universe and start talking bad about each other,” Hawke said, adding that her family had been able to “coexist” for holidays together in the past, although she wouldn't say when. But she said that system no longer works for her.
“I don't want to do that,” she said, “because it doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem real. And it's not the life I want.”
Hawke didn't say during the podcast episode whether she and Steven decided to invite Jack's mother and siblings to his birthday party, but no family members were in the photos she posted from the event. In the caption of her Instagram post about the event, she gave a shout-out to those who were showing support for Jack.
Hawke later told People magazine that she ended up not inviting the family to Jack's birthday party.
Hawke announced that Good Bones' eighth season will end in August 2023.
Hawke revealed in a separate podcast episode recorded in early 2023 and released on August 7 that “Good Bones” will end after eight seasons.
“It's the end of an era,” she said in the episode titled “Is It Over… Or Really?”
Hawke said she and HGTV had agreed to end the series, adding that the stress of the show had become too much for her, as the demands of television meant the team typically had five to eight projects going at once.
Although she wanted to slow down her work pace, Hawk was concerned about how her employees would be affected if she chose to step back, as working on fewer homes at once would mean she wouldn't need as many staff members.
Mina Starsiak Hawk spoke about her mother on her podcast. Michael Kovack/Getty Images, courtesy of Cost Plus World Market
“All the things that I was putting on myself made it really, really hard to function as a normal human being because I felt the weight of a whole bunch of people's worlds on my shoulders all the time,” she said. “I think I felt like I was fighting for my life, for my family's lives, for my employees' lives, to figure something out, to find a solution, to find the next thing, whether that made sense or not.”
“I ended up becoming a version of myself that I didn't really like,” she said.
Ultimately, Hawke said ending the series was the right decision for her husband and children.
While Lane did not publicly comment on the end of Good Bones, she hinted in the comments section of an Instagram post that she would be open to further opportunities with HGTV.
Lane posted a photo of herself with Hawke on August 10, 2023, promoting the show's eighth season, with one user commenting that she was “disappointed” that the show was coming to an end.
“Just because Mina says it's over doesn't mean there's nothing left in the future for me,” Rain replied.
Following Hawke's announcement, HGTV said in a statement that “This is the end of Good Bones as we know it, but we are currently in discussions with Mina and Karen about other projects.”
Hawke revealed that her relationship with Lane deteriorated while filming Good Bones.
Hawke spoke more about his relationship with his mother in an interview with People magazine published on September 7, 2023, saying that while filming season 8, he “felt like I was in the most challenging place I've ever been.”
She also revealed that there was a “violent fist fight” during the season eight premiere. [fight] During the demonstration.”
Hawke told People magazine that contrary to the impression people got from “Good Bones,” she always felt that her relationship with her mother was complicated.
“From what people know through the show, my mom and I are best friends, and they don't know anything else, so they just assume it's always been that way,” she told People magazine. “And I think that's really what a lot of people want, so they don't want to know anything else, and that's fine. But ever since I can remember, my relationship with my mom has been very rocky.”
Hawke also told People that while he and Reign bonded during their college years and when they started their businesses, they never felt the closeness of a traditional parent-child relationship.
“When we became close, we became close as friends,” she told People magazine. “We never really became close in a way that was like, 'You're my mom, so you take care of me. I'm your daughter, so I can rely on you to feel safe.'”
Hawke also said during an October 2023 podcast that she and her mother are not on speaking terms, saying, “We don't talk. We haven't talked in a long time.”
HGTV has announced that “Good Bones” will return for a limited season.
HGTV announced Wednesday that the new season of “Good Bones” will premiere on HGTV on Aug. 14, nearly a year after season eight premiered.
The show will continue to feature Hawk and Rain renovating a house, but unlike past seasons, the pair will not be working together and will only run for three weeks.
“The latest season of HGTV's hit series Good Bones follows the lives of Mina Starsiak Hawk and her mother, Karen E. Lane, as they renovate their home in Indianapolis,” said a press release for the show, seen by Business Insider.
Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Lane, August 2017. Michael Kovack/Getty Images
“Mina buys a very old but 'lovely' lakefront home just north of Indy and makes some much needed cosmetic renovations to create the tranquil family getaway of her dreams. Karen embarks on a new adventure in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she bets her retirement savings on a bungalow that needs more work than expected to turn it into a colorful beach oasis,” the article continued.
The announcement also states that the first 90-minute episode will focus on “Mina's arduous home-buying process and journey as she renovates her tranquil lakeside vacation home,” while “the subsequent two-hour episode will feature Karen's purchase of a 120-year-old beach bungalow.”
It appears Hawk and Rain won't interact in the series, with their renovation journeys being spotlighted separately.
