Phil Robertson Is Back on Duck Dynasty

It's back to business as usual on the Season 5 premiere despite the star's controversial comments

  • Share
  • Read Later

Like TIME on Facebook for more breaking news and current events from around the globe!

Just weeks after being suspended from the show for controversial comments he made in a magazine interview, Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson is back.

The 67-year-old duck call tycoon returns on the Season 5 premiere of the hit A&E show Wednesday night. Robertson had been suspended from the show after making comments that disparaged homosexuals and made light of Jim Crow segregation, the New York Daily News reports

Robertson’s suspension drew criticism from social conservatives, who felt the decision to kick Robertson off the series represented an attack on conservative values and on Robertson’s freedom of speech.

With his return to the show, Duck Dynasty returns to business as usual without so much as a hiccup in the narrative resulting from Robertson’s absence. As TIME’s James Poniewozik notes, the suspension took place while the show was on a shooting holiday, with the result that the episodes shot for the upcoming season are the same they would have been had there been no suspension at all.

[Daily News]