When the man responsible for his brother’s death is put up for a compassionate medical parole, Supervisory Special Agent Remy Scott (Dylan McDermott) loses it. There’s no way he wants the man set free, and the aftereffects of attending the parole hearing stay with him as his team takes on their next case.
So, when two Vermont teens are kidnapped on their way home from a basketball game, and the evidence points to a wayward pastor and his brother, the anger Remy feels from his personal issue transfers over to the case and we see a side of the FBI agent we’ve never seen before.
“I think that the echo of his brother’s death is always there in his head,” McDermott tells Parade in this exclusive interview. “But in this one, because of his brother’s killer possibly being paroled, I think that the stakes get so high for him. I think it triggers something inside of him that we haven’t seen before—his investment in this case and bringing these guys to justice and giving these parents some solace in their life. The idea that these kids are missing gnaws at him in such a way that is difficult for him to sustain.”
Remy’s knee-jerk reaction is to go undercover, and it’s Kristin Gaines (Alexa Davalos) who counsels him against it. Of course, it wasn’t that long ago that we learned that when Kristin had been undercover, her identity had been discovered by the drug dealers she was trying to put away and they tortured her. She held out until she was rescued, but not without it having a lasting affect on the way she approaches the job.
“I think he’s past listening,” continues McDermott of why Remy ignores her advice. “I think he wants to get the job done. I think that when Remy does go undercover, there’s a reason for it. I think he gets frustrated with the system, and he knows that he’s the only one who can do it. And he goes in hard, and he goes in swiftly to bring some kind of peace back to these families and to retrieve these kids.”
And even though the case is solved, the issue of forgiveness isn’t and from the ending—no spoilers here—it looks as if this will be approached again—if not in this season, possibly next.
“I think right now it’s punted down the field, but I think this is something that’s going to come to a head,” McDermott says. “We’re going to have to deal with whatever happens to this man who killed my brother. But I think, ultimately, the answer is that it’s going to be very hard for Remy to ever resolve this issue. When you lose someone, especially to violence, I think it just lingers. It hangs around, it lives inside of you, and it’s something that informs every step you make in this life. And that probably is going to hold true for Remy as well.”
Also during our chat, McDermott talked more about Remy’s eye-for-an-eye approach to justice, how he feels about the role 10 months into taking over for Julian McMahon, and what he’d like to see more of for Remy.
This is a very personal episode for Remy, it’s a case that really hits close to home. As an actor, what do you enjoy about the challenges of an episode that deals with his personal life in addition to his job?
I welcome it. I think it just adds so much fuel to the fire of FBI: Most Wanted because normally it’s a show that is always dealing with a very difficult subject matter. But this in particular, this is, I think, probably the most heinous of all, so there’s something about that mixed with his brother’s killer possibly getting out of jail and being paroled.
All of that is mixed in and it fuels Remy in such a way that the volume is turned way up, and he becomes a bit unhinged. And when he goes undercover, especially, which are my favorite episodes, there’s something about that, playing a character within a character, that adds a real excitement to the show.
The theme for this episode seems to be about forgiveness. Well, for the kidnapped kids it’s also no good deed goes unpunished, but for Remy it’s more about forgiveness. He seems to be going very Old Testament on this, going for an eye for an eye, rather than turning the other cheek. Is that who he normally is? Or again, is it because this is hitting so close with his brother?
I think as an FBI agent you sort of have to live there. You know what I mean? More so, because there is so much evil in the world and you’re seeing probably more than most people see. You’re seeing the worst parts of human beings. I think that it’s like being an emergency room nurse in a way, you’re always dealing with trauma. You’re always dealing with enormous violence, and you have to compartmentalize things to go in and get the job done. And I think that certainly happens to Remy quite a bit, but on this one, I think that something really hits him in a way that he wasn’t prepared for.
We’ve had a couple of episodes with your sister, and now on this issue, she is differing from Remy. Will he be able to accept that she has a different take on it?
No. I think that he doesn’t accept at all what she is saying. I think that that’s a gushing wound for him, and the fact that she would even think of that is just incomprehensible.
Obviously, Remy’s team is really upset with how he’s dealing with the whole situation, and yet they still do what he wants them to do. Is that out of the respect that he’s earned from them, or is that fear for their jobs? Why do you think that they don’t try to talk him down more?
Well, they do try to talk to him as much as they can, but he is the team leader and the buck does stop with him. So, they do really have to follow along with his orders at a certain point. And they have seen his track record by now, they know that he’s a great agent, they know that usually he catches the bad guy even when he’s a bit reckless. So, I think they’ve learned to live with the danger that is Remy Scott.
You joined the cast 10 months ago. What are you enjoying about the role now that you’ve found your footing.
I think the same thing that I felt on day one when I came over from Organized Crime to FBI: Most Wanted is the same thing I feel today, which is passion. I think the most important thing you bring to a TV show is passion. I think a lot of times with longstanding shows, they get a bit tired, there isn’t a lot of passion in them, and people are generally tired. I want to infuse as much passion as I can.
I’ve never phoned it in. I’ve never just shown up. There’s a fire in Remy’s belly that is the same as Dylan’s, and as long as I’m on this show, I will bring it every single day. And that’s just who I am. So that same fire, luckily, knock wood, is still here as it was my first day of work. And I hope it will be there till my last day.
You were such a bad guy on Organized Crime though.
I was.
Do you find that that is more interesting to play than this hero? But Remy is a flawed hero, so he also has many layers.
You know, you have to see the road ahead many times. If you’re playing a bad guy, and maybe you do that for a few years, you could overstay your welcome. And I knew that I was right at the tipping edge of doing that, so it was time to play good again. Actually, The New York Times wrote an article about that very thing, so it was time to play good again, and I’m happy to be good. It’s fun. It’s fun to play flawed.
I don’t think anybody’s all good. I don’t think anybody’s all bad. I think that we’re complex as human beings and we must find those specific complexities to play people. I think often too many times people just want to be the hero and be good or be the bad guy. I don’t think that that really exists, certainly not in my travels, so I always look for the different colors of a character.
If I’m playing a good guy, I look for what is bad in him. If I’m playing a bad guy, I look for what is good in him. No bad guy that I’ve ever met said, “Oh, man, I can’t believe how bad I am.” Everything is justified, right? We all justify things in life, and I think that’s what makes it interesting.
Now that you’ve been playing the role for a while, is there something that you would like to see in Remy’s future that maybe you would take the idea to the writers?
I still like this notion of undercover, playing a character within a character. I was in a motorcycle gang and then suddenly I’m a priest. I would like to explore all the different avenues of undercover work, of being different people. That really turns me on because then I can kind of show off my character skills as an actor, maybe different accents and different looks. I love all that stuff. My favorite part of acting is the character stuff.
