‘Pivoting’: Tommy Dewey Previews ‘Fireworks’ Between Amy & Henry and the Season Finale
Q&A
Get ready to see a different side of Amy (Eliza Coupe) and Henry’s (Tommy Dewey) relationship in this week’s Pivoting.
In “Fans Only,” she’s exhausted and baffled by his inability to keep his hands off her, so she tries to find out the cause for his change in behavior. And the aftermath of that will lead to a “shift” in their relationship heading into the March 10 season finale, Dewey teases.
Read on for more from Dewey about the last two episodes of the season of the Fox comedy.
What’s going on with Henry’s change in behavior this week?
Tommy Dewey: I’ve been looking forward to this one. It’s a good Henry episode. They are both seeing a new side in each other and are both turned on by it. Now that Amy is taking more of an active role in the life of her kids, Henry is excited by that. And then on the flip side, Amy finds out that Henry’s a little tougher in his work environment than she might have thought before and thinks that’s kind of sexy. So there’s fireworks.
Will there be a change in their relationship in the finale as a result?
I think there is a bit of a shift. They will leave this season tighter than ever and more attracted to each other than ever. If you watched the early part of the season, they are — Amy, especially — reckoning with Colleen’s death, and Henry’s just trying to keep the train on the tracks. He understands that his wife is going through a really devastating time. So the fun — I have to be careful to use fun because we’re talking about a tragedy — but the comedic fun for Henry early on is just trying to keep all the plates spinning and manage his wife and his kids and all this stuff because he knows that she needs some space. But as they kind of start to move through that, they can spend a little more time on one another. So the last couple episodes are great: little bit of sex farce in the episode this week and then that evolves into some really touching moments at the end of the season.
Michael Becker / FOX
When you were talking about the fun, that made me think of the mix of heartbreak and comedy when it came to Colleen’s phone number.
Oh, I loved that. Kudos to Liz Astrof and the rest of the staff for that because it was such a great story upon which to lay those great emotional turns. But it was also funny when that soldier calls at the end of the episode, it’s just fantastic. Not to get sidetracked, but when I first read the script, I was really excited by the idea of playing someone as selfless as Henry and making him funny and interesting. And I think he is, it’s all in the writing, but my last show, I played a pretty self-involved guy. So this sweet side of Henry’s been really interesting to explore.
Going back to this week’s episode, did you have a favorite scene to film?
There’s a scene where Amy and I are in bed and she’s trying to get to the bottom of kind of Henry’s shift and his shifting feelings towards her and she won’t let him go to sleep and Eliza and I got so tickled during that scene, we couldn’t get through it. I think we had to cut the scene early because we couldn’t get the last couple lines out. And then there’s a cascade of scenes after that that I think are really funny. There’s a lot of stuff that stands out, but no joke, this week in particular was a special one.
Michael Becker / FOX
Considering Jodie [Ginnifer Goodwin] and Sarah’s [Maggie Q] relationships, Amy and Henry seems to be the most stable on the show and it seems like the show really needs that, right?
Yeah. Why I’m so impressed with the writing on this show is it walks that tightrope — you talk about words like stability as it relates to television comedy — and drama for that matter — you’re in kind of dangerous territory because you don’t want things to be too steady. Chaos is great fodder for comedy, but they do kind of hold the center of the show in a way because you have faith that they’re going to work it out and the crazier stuff can happen on the fringes. But it’s still funny and interesting and gets at the minutiae of the daily goings on between husbands and wives. That’s a tough balance to strike, and I think Liz and company do it really well.
Riker Brothers
We’ve learned a bit about Henry, like the hair pills. Other than what we’ve talked about so far, how much are we going to learn about him in these last two episodes of the season?
You keep learning more and I really hope we get a shot at Season 2 because Liz and I have already talked about where we can take Henry from here. Henry has pivoting to do of his own, but we do scratch the surface of that in these last couple episodes. And one thing we start to uncover is not only kind of where he is with Amy and that evolving relationship, but also where he is with his guy friends. Those relationships evolve in the run up to the finale, with Colton Dunn and even Robert Baker. So there’s some fun in store with the guys in these last couple.
What was your favorite scene to film of the season? Was it the one from this week’s episode or another one?
I think it’s this week. You never know how these things are going to turn out, although I’m very happy with how really everything has. I go back to the memory of shooting them and the scenes I remember are the ones where we really cracked each other up and had a lot of trouble getting through, and that’s the scene in the bedroom this week that I’m thinking of off the top of my head.
What else can you tease about the season finale?
There’s some fun with the guys and that core trio of wonderful women get to a new place in their relationship with Colleen’s death and they tee up further hijinks. They’ve evolved a little bit. They’re starting to see where they can place the tragedy of her death in their own lives and not move past it, but live with it. But there’s plenty of loose ends for us to revisit if we get to make some more of these.
Pivoting, Thursdays, 9:30/8:30c, Fox
