‘Sullivan’s Crossing’: Scott Patterson on That Sully Cliffhanger in Season 1 Finale

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Sullivan’s Crossing Season 1 finale “Sins of the Father.”]

Talk about a dramatic ending to a season!

Sullivan’s Crossing caps off its first ten episodes with Maggie (Morgan Kohan) ready to accept responsibility in court only for her patient’s mother to drop the case (she wanted her to understand what she was going through), looking ahead to a job offer in Boston, and pregnant; Cal (Chad Michael Murray) saying goodbye to his late wife; and Sully (Scott Patterson), after Maggie questioned why he didn’t try to stop her and left, remembered going after her only to hit Lola on her bike — and then he collapsed!

Below, Patterson teases what’s ahead after that cliffhanger.

At the end of the finale, Sully collapses, and he’d said in the previous episode that he just had a headache. What can you say about what’s going on with him? Because it’s not just his physical health but everything that’s going on in his life, too, right?

Scott Patterson: Anybody that watches these ten episodes sees that this guy’s battling alcoholism. He’s battling a tremendous amount of stress associated with his family, his ex-wife, and his daughter showing up after so many years. And there are some scenes in the first season where he’s having trouble paying his bills at the Crossing. So it’s just a whole crate load after crate load of stress for dear old Sully, and I think he needs a little bit of a nap, right? So he does. He takes a nap on the floor there. [Laughs]

But he hasn’t been hiding a medical condition? He doesn’t know what’s going on.

Correct, he does not know why this happened. And I think more to the point, the audience doesn’t know if he’s even going to survive it. So I’ll never tell.

How does Sully feel about his relationship with Maggie at the end of the season? Just as it looked like things were getting better between them, they had that last conversation before she left, and she called him Sully again instead of Dad.

Their relationship is emblematic of any parent-child relationship that is strained over years and years of grievances and startups and cutoffs and starting up again, and it’s a real rollercoaster for these two. I think in terms of the storytelling, it serves the piece very well because we’re being whipsawed back and forth between the joy of seeing these two getting closer and closer and sort of signing a peace deal, and then it all blows up right away, and we’re back at square one, and maybe even in negative territory — it just seems to be getting worse as it gets better.

Michael Tompkins/Fremantle

But that’s the fun of watching it. You just don’t know where the landmines are because there are so many, and Roma Roth has done such a great job of laying out landmines all over the place, and we never know when somebody’s going to step on one. And it seems like Sully’s not terribly good at getting through those minefields, is he? But the thing about Sully is he helped create those minefields through his own behavior and his own lack of self-control in his earlier years and in his midlife. I think for the audience, it’s interesting to watch a man struggle with so many obstacles and so many personal demons because it’s relatable, and everybody’s got them to one extent or another. I wouldn’t wish upon anybody the amount of struggles that Sully faces seemingly on a daily basis on all fronts. But I think it’s relatable, and people say, yeah, I’ve been through that, and I felt that, and I know what it’s like. That’s really the genius of what Roma does; she makes these very compact, dramatic scripts that are 100 percent relatable to anybody. So it’s a real honor to play the character, and I hope people continue to enjoy it.

Speaking of those landlines, a flashback shows that Sully was the one to hit Lola because he was chasing after Maggie. Is that something he’s ever going to be ready to tell those who need to know?

People will have to tune into Season 2 to find out. All I can really say is that, yes, that is explored in the second season.

Sully did get that final payment deadline for the campground. Would he ever be ready to say goodbye to that place, even if everything else in his life was perfect? It feels like if he loses that, he loses the last thing he has.

Yeah, I don’t think he’s letting that go. He’s going to fight like crazy to keep that place. It’s been in the family since the late 1800s. He made a promise to his father. It’s the importance of building that legacy and maintaining that legacy for generation after generation to preserve it. It’s a huge responsibility for him, and it’s what he does. It’s his place. It keeps all the memories alive, creating new ones for people and for himself, Edna [Andrea Menard], and Frank [Tom Jackson] and everybody involved with his life. Sullivan’s Crossing is the nexus of that town. It’s where everybody comes to celebrate, and he throws annual celebrations. I think if that were to go away, it would affect the community. I think that’s more what he’s fighting for as well, is to keep that community tight-knit, knowing full well that he and his campground have been a pillar of that place for generations. So it’s a big responsibility. He’s not going to let go of that place easily, for sure.

Talk about reuniting with Chad and actually working together onscreen for the first time.

Yeah, I never worked with him before in an actual scene. He was on Gilmore and in an indie film I did, but I didn’t get to work with him. Chad is an experienced pro, and we did a scene yesterday where I had a little speech, he’s very supportive, and he’s very in tune. He’s very easy to connect with. He’s a very open soul. So I look forward to more scenes with him. You never know what to expect because I never worked with him before, but I was very pleased with the first couple of scenes we did. He’s easy to work with. He knows his craft, and that’s all you can hope for with a scene partner. And yeah, I told Roma, “Please, more Chad for me, more scenes, just make-up stuff. Let us work together. Doesn’t have to be dramatic. We can just be, I don’t know, having a beer or something, shooting the breeze.”

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After Maggie’s trial, there’s that tease that there’s something about Walter (Peter Outerbridge), and we know what Sully thinks of Walter. How might Sully react if he were to find that out?

That’s the wild card, right? That’s the question. Is he going to whack him again, or is he going to try to understand them because you want to see a character grow? You want to see a character overcome their demons. And to revert back to this violent behavior in a kind of an old-school throwback way — it was completely appropriate behavior. You’re confronted with a guy who basically just destroyed your character and defamed you all these years, and kept your child away from you. Anyone worth their salt is going to just take a whack at somebody that does that — or anybody in Sully’s position, I should say. But yes, Sully is confronted with another Walter conundrum, and he definitely reacts. Let’s just say that.

What was the toughest scene to film from Season 1? 

That scene at the end where I collapsed, I think. Those are difficult. There’s nobody to play off of, but there’s actually a lot to play off of inside that box of memories that he’s going through. It’s tough navigating that kind of thing. You really have to trust your director and your support team there to say, “Hey, that’s a little too much,” but if you follow your instincts, usually you’re going to be okay. And I did, and everybody seemed to be happy with it, but that was tough. You do some research, and I’m finding this writing not easy, but it’s accessing a lot of things for me personally.

And it is difficult work, and these are long days, and it’s deeply emotional work, but I think I’m able to do it because there isn’t really anything that she’s written so far that I haven’t experienced in my real life. And I’m a little long in the tooth now, so I hope I have a little experience behind me. I think that’s just one of the advantages of getting a little older, is you’ve got a bigger bag of tricks and you’ve got a bigger emotional ocean to dip into when you need it. So, all of these things are not necessarily close to the surface, but they’re not terribly difficult to recall. So yeah, as a younger actor, you really have to lean on your technique, but the older you get, the more life experience you have, the more you don’t have to rely on technique anymore. That’s been kind of a wonderful surprise.

What else can you tease about Season 2?

We get into some new narratives. There’ll be some questions answered that were posed from the get-go in Season 1. There will be new tensions. There will be a lot of surprises. I think Season 2 is faster-paced overall, but it’s Sullivan’s Crossing, so it’s similar in that it’s still deeply emotional, it’s deeply romantic, and we’re just watching these characters go through their lives and grow to these sorts of inevitable mini-conclusions and complications that arise.

Sullivan’s Crossing, Season 2, TBA, The CW