‘Surface’: Phil Dunster Talks Quinn’s Conflicted Emotions About Sophie Being His Sister

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Surface Season 2 Episode 5 “Daybreak.”]

Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is no longer the only one who knows that she’s a Huntley. Her birth father, Henry Huntley (Rupert Graves), informs one of his other children in the latest Surface episode.

Quinn (Phil Dunster) confronts his father about having the death of the call girl, Phoebe, he was in a video with, ruled a suicide. Was it really worth killing her to continue to keep Henry’s father’s secrets from coming out? Henry tells him he shouldn’t have opened his mouth — and about Sophie (or Tess, as the Huntleys know her as) being his daughter. How does he plan to handle it, Quinn asks. An offer in exchange for her discretion, Henry says. Quinn makes it clear that if Henry doesn’t tell Eliza (Millie Brady), he’ll inform his sister.

So how does Quinn feel about Sophie/Tess being his sister? “There are so many conflicting things for him at this point because he’s still very much in the middle of trying to figure out how much he can move the Huntleys away from this sort of old way of doing things, very sort of Machiavellian, and into a sort of new world of trying to be more conscientious,” Dunster tells TV Insider. “But also he has lived this whole life of being this sort of heir apparent of this family…”

“Dynasty,” Mbatha-Raw interjects. “You can say it: He’s jealous.”

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Dunster agrees, “Big time. Because his status has revolved around him being top dog. And now there’s a new kid on the block and her name’s Sophie slash Tess.”

Elsewhere in the episode, journalist Callum (Gavin Drea) does some digging and discovers that the real Tess was a little blonde girl who died. He confronts Sophie, wanting to know when she took her name and who she is really. He tells her to leave him out of it and storms out.

“There’s definitely an element of it that he probably could have done with taking the night to sleep on it a little bit, but at the same time, his trust levels are wafer thin at this point,” admits Drea. “He’s just been let down time after time and I think it’s his frustration building up, and it is frustrating. I mean, she has been toying with him and using him, and I’m sure it happens a lot in the line of work where you are manipulated by the source and it happens, but I think he is in a place where it’s just a little bit too much for him.”

Surface, Fridays, Apple TV+