Well, Erika Christensen promised Will Trent Episode 17 would be packed with big story developments, and she didn’t oversell it one bit.
On Tuesday’s (May 6) episode, in which Christensen makes her directorial debut, her character Angie gets some very unexpected news from her boyfriend and doctor Seth (Scott Foley): She’s pregnant. His manner of delivery is uniquely thoughtful; he tells her he’ll go along with whatever she chooses to do because the relationship with her is what matters. He’s in love with her, he declares.
Seth’s stable support isn’t just limited to the baby news. He’s also got a very measured approach to her prior news that she has been drinking too much lately thanks to her complicated feelings about the death of her abusive and neglectful mother. He doesn’t know all of the details about the latter, of course.
Meanwhile, Will (Ramón Rodríguez) and Faith (Iantha Richardson) are sent to cover a double homicide case with a stern local sheriff named Caleb (Yul Vazquez), and things go off the rails thanks to a loose cat trampling all over the crime scene. This results in a door being broken, with glass shards cutting all of the officers. The blood samples from the scene are all separated and tested by forensics, resulting in yet another jaw-dropper: Caleb is Will’s biological father.
After the two strangers have a few awkward, even hostile exchanges, we’re still left with more questions than answers, so it’s a good thing he’s rumored to be returning for Season 4. Because they won’t have time to forge a father-son relationship right now, however fraught it becomes.
See, the perp in their case hasn’t just killed three people. He’s also unleashed a biological weapons attack on Atlanta as part of his plot to renew the world by destroying it. At the end tail end of the episode, we see Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin), Nico (Cora Lu Tran), and Betty all being trapped in a chaotic hospital setting as it goes into lockdown with a swarm of infected patients.
What made you want to direct an episode this season?
Erika Christensen: The reason I wanted to go directly was one of my favorite parts of participating in movies and television, the whole art form, is the collaborative aspect of it and really feeling like I’m part of a team. So directing is the ultimate in that, feeling like I’m part of the team, and getting to collaborate more directly with all departments in a way that’s different than acting. So I just lucked out as far as that episode was, because it ended up being just the crescendo on the way up before the season resolves. It’s a good one.
The episode starts out with Angie in the hospital, and she doesn’t really get time to feel her pain of the bar fight. What did she take away from that encounter?
It’s such an instant — you don’t want to call it karma, because it’s more personal than that, but it’s just proving you made a decision that goes against yourself and what’s right for you. And here’s proof, immediately. Like “Yes, that backfired immediately.” I think it’s interesting because she tries to have such kind of a heroic moment, and then it goes so poorly, and who knows how long it would have taken her to process that and sort of find her way back, had she not been presented with more pressing news.
She does kind of hold herself accountable, though, a little bit, by telling Seth about it right?
Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting, too, because she doesn’t often wallow in shame; she just owns it. But she’s having a shameful moment, and it speaks to the fact that he’s a very safe person, and he can really relate because he’s been there, and they’re in a relationship, and he just found out. But he’s not holding her accountable. So she steps up and, in a way, she would have preferred him to be angry. She would have preferred him to laugh and to call her the names that she would like to call herself in that moment. But he’s too good for that, and certainly, he’s distracted by the more pressing news as well. But he’s just a good, stable, non-judgmental, healthy person through that whole scene, navigating both bombshells.
So the pregnancy news is obviously huge, and like you said, it’s delivered in such a considerate and kind way. He’s talking to her as both her doctor and her boyfriend. Can you talk about — as director and actor — crafting the tone of that moment? It’s so unique.
Yeah, it’s fascinating because Scott and I had such a lovely time. He had a completely different idea. And I kept trying to get him to see my point of view, and he kind of was digging in and laughing at me, going, “Wow, you hate my idea.” … Basically, I wanted [Seth] to recognize how high the stakes were because he knows Angie so well, and he knows that this could be the last conversation they ever have. She could fully just be like, “This is too much.”
Whether she decides to keep it or not, she’s just gonna ghost him, which would be the absolute worst-case scenario coming back from that. Maybe she doesn’t want the baby but then wants to be with him, and he’s like, “Yeah, I think I was cool with that, but I’m not sure…” There’s so many different ways that it could go, and he’s trying to be really open to all of them and just say, “I’m here for you. This relationship is what’s important to me,” which is beautiful…
Angie ended up feeling, in a word, undeserving of essentially really good news, and he’s emotionally intelligent enough to read that and try to give her grace, but also be concerned about the endless possibilities of where she might go from here. So for us, it was really finding the vulnerability of it and the crux of it was that he hadn’t had any time to process it. Someone handed him the iPad with her sheet on it right before he walked in the door, and he went, [gesturing scrolling] “Angie Polaski, scan, blood level, alcohol, pregnancy test,” everything right as he’s walking through the door. So he’s like, “Okay,” having to play the scene going, “Okay, do doctor things while I get my feet under me.”
