TVLINE | Your characters get into it back at the office, with Scola telling Nina that they’ve taken enough risk. She even says he’s like “an overbearing husband” at one point. What’s Nina’s perspective on this conflict and the fact that Scola may be treating her differently from his other colleagues?
VANSANTEN | The way that I justify it is, I think there’s different levels of investment. She’s been on this case for months, and I think the further along you get and the closer you get to the end result of taking down a big family or whatever it is that makes the world safer, there is so much at stake. The closer you get to it and the more invested you are, the harder it is to be there in your real life and to separate from anything other than the goal of seeing this through, and that becomes the priority. Obviously, we see that that hurts her relationship.
I think that she also sometimes takes for granted that he does what she does, and so he should just get it. But if he’s not in the same space as her with the same investment level, I think that that’s the tricky part of navigating [it], and the audience being able to see their relationship and what they do for work and why it’s interesting. Even though we’ve played the story of, “Oh, you’re taking a risk,” it’s like, yes, every day they go to work, there’s a risk, but this one, they weren’t front and center for, or this one we see has been a months and months long case, and she’s really in it. I don’t think the way she responded was great, but I also think that it allows us to humanize them and also to see the repair and the love that they have and deep respect they have for one another, even though they have momentary lapses in communication, like we all do.
BOYD | Scola is certainly a seasoned investigator, but there’s one thing that can throw him off track, and it’s the woman he loves more than anything in the world going into the abyss. I think that’s extremely difficult. It’s an interesting thing to explore.
TVLINE | On top of all of those challenges, how much does being parents factor into things?
VANSANTEN | I think it factors in every day of their life. Before they come to work, there’s still responsibilities that exist and they’ve found a way that works, but it’s not always going to work that way. As we see in this episode, the formula doesn’t always make the best pancake [Laughs], for lack of a better expression.
TVLINE | I love that. Did you just make that up? I’ve never heard that one before. [Laughs]
VANSANTEN | Yes? I don’t know! [Laughs]
BOYD | The line that we’re exploring is that two people care about each other so much, but they also care about what they do, that their dedication and their need to make a better world takes them over. What does that do to their relationship? It’s devastating. It’s sad that two people can make a pact that if one of us is in a situation that’s life threatening, the other one stays to protect our child, and because of our need to do that job, we go off track, and then we have to navigate that conflict. It’s sad to me, the place that that couple goes, which just makes the ending more rewarding that they get through that.
VANSANTEN | But there’s always a sacrifice because of the job that they’ve chosen, but I think we’ve seen season after season them being like, “Are you sure? Because this is who I am. This is what I do. This is what we do.” So yeah, I think it does make it more sweet at the end, knowing that they accept the sacrifices. Sometimes the relationship is going to be the bottom priority because of a case. Sometimes they’re not the best team, and sometimes then we see them repair and they are.
