‘Countdown’: Jensen Ackles & Jessica Camacho Talk Meachum’s Confession
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Countdown Season 1 Episode 7 “Nothing Else Helps.”]
Detective Mark Meachum (Jensen Ackles) finally lets someone in about the serious medical condition he’s been hiding from the task force all season on Countdown in the Wednesday, July 23, episode.
The series premiere reveals that Meachum has a glioblastoma multiforme, a brain tumor. With the risk of surgery or radiation outweighing the benefits, his doctor recommends he just live out his remaining days in comfort with relief medication. He, instead, chooses to continue to work, suffering headaches that are starting to affect him on the job. He tells DEA agent Amber Oliveras (Jessica Camacho) he’s just dealing with migraines, and she gives him stronger medication to help in Episode 6. But in Episode 7, after he’s late to work and at first tells her the pills are no longer working due to the law of diminishing returns.
Near the end of the episode, she stops by his place with a drug to disrupt his serotonin receptors, and that’s when he tells her he has a tumor and it’s terminal. He doesn’t know how long he has, he says, and he’s not going out staring at the sunset on a beach, dipping his toes in the ocean. If he’s going out, he’s going out saving something, the city, its people. (Sound like another of Ackles’ characters?) So how much did Meachum want to open up to someone, especially Oliveras, even if part of him didn’t want to want that?
“I think this is kind of the inherent struggle with him, is he’s so used to kind of staying guarded and staying behind his exterior, that he’s built up all these walls as we do, these emotional kind of barricades that we put on ourselves,” Jensen Ackles tells TV Insider. “But I think he’s now getting to a point where he really doesn’t have anybody in his life. And I think that it’s starting to kind of dawn on him that maybe some cracks in his armor aren’t the worst thing, and he feels a connection with her, obviously, and is maybe trying to accept that this is coming at the right time.”
Jessica Camacho says that Oliveras “understands” Meachum’s plan to possibly go out saving the city.
“I think she respects it. I think that’s what she would do, too,” she admits. “So I think she understands, but also you start to kind of care for somebody, and you’re no longer playing the same game. You want them to be okay. You want them to keep showing up. You want the best for them. So even though she respects it — and I know internally, she’s like, ‘Yep, I know that I would do the same’ — it’s also this fear that can only happen when you let somebody in a little bit.”
Countdown, Wednesdays, Prime Video
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Their chemistry is amazing. This was a very moving scene, the tone made it so.
This was a great episode for all characters. I wish the episodes were longer.
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This scene was amazing and really shows why Jensen Ackles is so admired as an actor. That all came across. Mark softly, quietly revealing his diagnosis and his hope that he at least will be able to save people before the tumor completely disabled him, that he doesn't want to sit around, just dying. The weight of it, of his mortality staring him right in the face.
Jensen has done some incredible acting in his career and this was up there with the very best of it.
Jessica's Amber's stoic reaction, trying to be matter of fact but admitting she doesn't know what to do with this information (ie how she feels, and one gets the feeling that Mark himself knows this feeling too like he also sometimes doesn't know what to with the fact that he's dying), like a rug she didn't know was there was pulled from under her a little, was very realistic and added admirably to the weight and importance of the scene.
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C'mon we all know Meachum is Dean who grew older and finally ditched the hunter life...
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Countdown is one of the best shows I've seen in awhile. I can hardly wait for Wed. 38% Rotten Tomatoes?? Your math is all wrong. Go back to school. I won't be relying on your guidance anymore.
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i thought it was fitting. Jensen does emotional layering SO WELL. Hopefully they’ll find a way for him to heal so he can stick around for a few seasons. Cuz I’m getting all my ppl watching it, for that man’s performance alone lol but i like how Meachum n Oliveras compliment each other in an anarchistic way
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