[Warning: The following post contains spoilers for Duster Episode 6.]
Things get pretty hairy for Nina (Rachel Hilson) and Jim (Josh Holloway) in this week’s edition of Duster… but things also end on a somewhat swoony note.
Like Episode 2 (which was also directed by Steph Green), this segment begins with the ending, as the two have to work together to survive a shootout. The story then goes back in time to reveal how they’ve gotten there. The day of the big meeting with the Russians, Nina is almost found out when Agent Grant (Dan Tracy) shows up to the hotel where Nina is waiting for Saxton (Keith David). Billy (Evan Jones) rightly clocks her as duplicitous, and while Royce (Benjamin Charles Watson) is too busy flirting to notice, Billy doesn’t let it go.
After Royce becomes loopy from mixing his heart medication with alcohol at the meeting, causing a scene with the Russians, Billy gets word that the license plate of the person who visited Nina is indeed a federal government plate. He holds Nina up at gunpoint and demands answers. A shootout then commences, and only Nina’s quick wit can save the day. To Billy, she admits to being a liar and says her visitor was an ex who’s been tailing her and won’t leave her alone.
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That is enough to ameliorate the situation, for a while at least, and soon Jim and Nina a.k.a. “Baltimore” find themselves alone sharing a vodka to celebrate.
For a brief moment, it looks like the two might take their newfound friendship to another level, but then they are distracted by the airing of a news story featuring his ex Izzy (Camille Guaty) and her planned strike against Saxton’s trucking company.
If not for that telecast, might they have gone there?
The actors playing the scene agreed that while there was some new tension on display between the two, it wasn’t heading to a romance … not yet, at least. When asked if they might’ve kissed without the interruption, Josh Holloway told TV Insider, “No, it doesn’t feel that way yet at all. I felt like, yes, they shared a moment as man and woman, but…”
“I think it’s the first time they really see each other as potential equals and partners… and I think we realize we’re both attracted to each other’s tenacity and ability to adapt to our situations because we do find ourselves in these insane situations, and I think there’s just a natural camaraderie and attachment that builds from those moments,” Rachel Hilson jumped in to add.
“Also, for Jim, I think that’s the first time I see you kind of as a woman, not an enemy coming at me — actually taking care of me in a way like a wound or something. I’m like, ‘Ah, wait, I can see her as a woman for a second,’ but I don’t feel… Nah, we haven’t earned any of that stuff yet,” Holloway concluded.
“We never wanted that to become a dominant or a forced idea, but they had real chemistry,” director Steph Green also told TV Insider of that big of understated romantic tension. “In those moments of heightened states, people really do feel that intimacy. So I think it was a conversation about intimacy, not romance, per se, and just it was there.”
Green also talked about how the scene naturally filled with that air of will they or won’t they energy, saying, “These two are professionals, they’re not going to go there, but I think it was a culmination of just the closeness, the trust… It’s all about trust, the trust they now have for each other. First, they were forced to trust each other because of the deal they made. Now, they actually want to know each other and trust each other. And I think that’s what that was a manifestation of, sort of, ‘Beyond the tasks, the adventure, the challenges, now we really care for each other. Now we really are enjoying being together. Now, in a way, we trust each other more than anyone else.”
We’ll see whether that closeness becomes something more as the series continues to build towards the finale.
Duster, Thursdays, HBO Max