Alex is going undercover as an asset! What can we expect going forward with that?
Beth Schacter: It’s Owen and Alex. Owen has handled an asset before, Helen Sharp, who is going to come up again, and it did not end well as we know from earlier in the season. So this is another chance at redemption for Owen, and for him to prove that he has what it takes to be in the field and be a teacher and an essential part of this task force. It’s very much his plan, and he has a very clear vision of what Alex has to do. Alex is putting her life and this entire plan in his hands, but she definitely has her own ideas and instincts as we know. There’s a nice interplay between the operative and operator. Owen, as her handler, is really learning from her and how she works and what she can still teach him, as well as her learning from him being truly undercover in a very dangerous situation.
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It takes a lot of trust to work so closely together, and it shows how far their relationship has developed this season.
To go from the place where he didn’t even want her to be in the CIA to now her being the person who is going to redeem him and could possibly redeem him in his own career. But also, she’s willing to put her life and this whole operation in his hands and potentially risk betraying the entire task force. So the stakes just keep getting higher. We’re not going down in stakes anymore.
How’s the team going to react to Alex & Owen doing their own thing with this?
I think it’s going to be fun in the next episodes. Everybody has their own take on it, and a lot of it has to do with how they feel about Alex and how they feel about Owen. It’s a great way for our characters to start working out their emotions — how Ryan feels, how Shelby feels, how Clay feels… There’s a lot of interpersonal dynamics in the team that are going to be worked out and come to crisis because she’s seemingly betrayed them.
Alex has really evolved so much in the back-nine. What can you tease about her journey ahead?
With Alex, it’s always been since the pilot that Alex’s instincts are really good. Other than the stumble at the beginning of this season, she trusts herself more now than she has before. And where does that trusting herself take her? Does it take her away from the people she loves? Does it take her closer to the people she loves?
How will Alex and Owen going off on their own impact what the task force trying to take down the collaborators?
It’s going to get messier and more exciting. It’s not going to be two-track. Our team is always going to be working towards the same goal of taking down the collaborators, taking down these people that they believe are so dangerous. They will believe they are in parallel tracks, but with Quantico those tracks are going to cross and people are going to crash.
Okay, is it strictly platonic between Owen and Alex?
This is what I will say, they have a very deep emotional connection. In another place and another time, who knows what it is. They’re so focused on the mission that right now it’s a very deep emotional connection. Could it go somewhere else? Maybe. But right now, he sees who she is, and she says there are no lies between them. So unlike Ryan, who’s very first approach to Alex in the beginning of the show was a lie, for a guy who lies for a living, Owen has never lied to her. That’s what it’s about. It’s not about the romantic relationship for her. He really knows who she is, and he’s really been honest with her. That’s the first person she’s really had that with.
Caleb came back in full force this episode. But he says he’s heading out, is he gone for good?
For the moment, he’s gone. For the moment, he’s not coming back. He really was because he really loves his brother and doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him. He was worried that Shelby was a bad decision that Clay was going to make. And now that Clay believes that Caleb and Shelby slept together, it becomes a very different story.
Let’s talk about the Clay & Shelby scene….
That was the scene we knew we were building towards as soon as we introduced his character. That scene, that actual speech where he says: I need to know that if I call you that you won’t answer, because if something goes wrong in my marriage, you’re the place I want to go to. He understood what he was going to do in the future. It wasn’t that he was going to transgress. It was that he could see a transgression in his future. And that, for us, we always knew we were building to that moment. For us, that was a really important moment of understanding for that character. He’s someone who’s very controlling and very buttoned up, and now he knows how messy emotions are. It’s very hard for him.
Is Shelby going to continue to push Clay away like he asked her to?
Shelby will be making some good and bad decisions. They both are going to make decisions, and for us, it’s always been about what do you do when you know something could happen but you know it shouldn’t happen? How do you resist a magnetic attraction? Is the magnetic attraction gone? We’ll see.
For me, I think it’s just building to a point where they just can’t deny it anymore.
And that’s the question. If that’s what their building towards, what happens when they can’t deny it. If it’s not what you’re building towards, what happens when you burn something down that could have been great. Shelby’s in the crossroads right now in the next couple of episodes. What’s great about Shelby and the way Jo plays her is that it’s clear that she understands the two ways it could go, and she’s not doing handling this situation impulsively. She’s an incredibly thoughtful, caring person who has made decisions but also has been around men who’ve made decisions, and she has to figure out who she is and what she wants to do. For us, it’s so fun to watch Shelby in a situation that we built the architecture of in season one.
Now that Clay thinks they slept together and Shelby knows how he feels, it surely wont be easy for them to work together.
I will say full-out that it’s not that Shelby stopped caring about him or he stopped caring about her, so it’s how do you work with someone that you care about, but you’ve now put a line in the sand that’s undeniable. Can it stay undeniable? It’s not that they hate each other at all, it’s actually much harder when you don’t hate the person. That’s what so great about it. He asks her to make him hate her, and that’s what she does, and he clearly doesn’t hate her. He also really does respect that she did something and burned it down, and he’s going to try to make it work so that they’re professional together. We’ll see… They could just becoming best friends.
This was episode 19 and there are 3 more episodes left. What can we expect in these final episodes of season 2?
We up the stakes in 20 and then we have a huge, huge event in 21. The stakes are even higher. I know it seems impossible. Somehow we find ourselves in the biggest stakes imaginable. It’s fun to watch them try and save the world. It wouldn’t be Quantico if they didn’t end up at the end of the season saving the world or trying to.
What’s going to be going on with Felix? He’s certainly in an interesting position…
Felix is a good man. He’s made choices in his life leading him to where he is with Rourke. But he is a good man, and the question is: will he be good for someone he’s growing fond of, which is Raina? Obviously, he really likes her, and he really connects with her. Will he be a good man for her? I don’t mean that just romantically. Will he do good for her and help her? Or will he serve his boss? He’s caught, if you look at Raina as pure good and Rourke as pure evil, between those two things.
HollywoodLifers, do you think Shelby and Caleb will be able to deny their feelings? Let us know!