‘Countdown’ Team Talks Meachum’s ‘Hurt’ Reaction to Oliveras’ New Romance

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Countdown Season 1 Episode 11 “Run.”]

The task force is complete once again on Countdown, with Oliveras (Jessica Camacho) returning after it looked like she wouldn’t be able to due to her work with the DEA. But just because she’s back and Meachum (Jensen Ackles) is now on the other side of his treatment for his brain tumor doesn’t mean that they have a future together.

In fact, in the time that’s passed, Oliveras is now with her old friend and the doctor who talked Meachum into that treatment, Julio (Eddie Aguirre). Clearly hurt, Meachum remarks that she took what could have been and threw it out the window. Later in the episode, he admits what he said was uncalled for and apologizes. He then says that they would’ve wrecked everything they had if they’d gotten together.

According to Ackles, that’s not necessarily the truth. “I don’t think he believes that. I think he said that as a way of deflating the situation,” he tells TV Insider.

Oliveras, on the other hand, “partly” thinks it’s true. “You know when you’re like, ‘Oh, this is going to be so bad for me, and I can’t wait’?” Camacho asks with a laugh. “It’s this mix of confusing, kind of not knowing, and that’s part of what we love sometimes as human beings. It’s like, ‘Oh, I have no idea what could happen from this. But there’s something about it.'”

She adds, “More importantly, she’s trying to convince herself. She needs to believe that it. would be a mess: ‘Great, we totally dodged the bullet.’ And I don’t think she necessarily does.”

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Creator Derek Haas says that Meachum’s response comes from being hurt. “He had in his mind what was going to happen. He was going to brave through — hopefully, this medical trial was going to be successful, and then he was going to sweep Oliveras off her feet and right off into the sunset,” he explains. “And as life sometimes happens, things are tricky, and I think he’s really hurt. And sometimes when you’re hurt, you say mean things, and it’s a little bit of a reset for them back to where they were prior to all the time that they spent. Where it goes from here, keep watching, and we’ll see because I think their chemistry is pretty undeniable if they could only see it.”

As for Oliveras’ relationship with Julio, “he’s safe,” says Camacho. “He’s safe in that she only has to bring what she wants to bring.” Part of that? He notes that she “never breaks,” but it feels like she just never shows him that she does.

“There’s a part of her that wants normalcy, safe, secure, stable,” Camacho continues. “‘I should want that.’ I think she craves that sometimes, just the simplicity that she does not have. But I think also she knows that it doesn’t work for her, that she needs complexity, depth, risk, adrenaline. She needs somebody who can see her in her totality, and I think she knows that even if he tried to, he would never understand her world. And so I think there’s safety in that because she can hide. ‘I’m only going to give you what feels good, what feels accessible to me to give you.’ That’s what she’s decided on because she needs something. I don’t think that’s all bad. I think that there’s so much beauty in that as well. I just don’t think it’s her. And we get to see that dawn on her more and more.”

While Oliveras may still be figuring out her personal life, she’s more than happy to be back with the task force. “I don’t think she’s necessarily showing the depth of how grateful she feels to be with the team again, where she belongs in a sense,” admits Camacho. “I think that sense of belonging somewhere is new to her. I don’t think that’s something that she’s felt as a person in a very long time. I think she’s felt ostracized. I think she’s felt also like she has to hide in so many different ways because of what she does, how much she goes undercover to keep herself alive, but also her demons, the skeletons in her closet. So much of herself has been about hiding who she is. For the first time, it’s like, ‘Oh, I missed y’all.’ It feels really good to miss people. You can’t do that unless you care, unless you feel connected in some way.”

There’s also the fact that the task force leader Blythe (Eric Dane) clearly sees that her skills were wasted with the DEA and makes it clear that he respects her. “She sees herself in him,” Camacho says. “She’s like, ‘Finally, someone who gets me.’ She knows that Blythe chose them for who they are. She knows that he wants that renegade spirit. He’s not a micromanager, and Oliveras cannot be micromanaged. She needs leeway to do what she needs to do in the moment, and I think that he gets that and supports her, and that feels really good.”

Elizabeth Morris/Prime

Meanwhile, the team’s new investigation, which kicked off in Episode 10 after a 10-month time jump, continues, as they try to track down a sniper (Grant Harvey) who seems to have his eyes on the governor. In flashbacks, he finds his wife cheating on him, and he takes her dog, has it run across a field, and aims his rifle. Did “Todd,” as the team has taken to calling him, kill the dog?! Haas refuses to entertain the idea.

“In my view, some couple was hiking in the woods, and that dog made it to the woods safely, and this couple from San Bernardino is sweet, and they’ve adopted Penny and taken Penny home. and Penny is living a wonderful life in San Bernardino. That’s my story. I’m sticking to that,” he says.

After all, it would say so much about just how bad Todd is if he’s the kind of person who would kill a dog. “That seems terrible. If he would do that, I would hate that guy. If that’s him, that guy deserves to get whatever’s coming to him,” adds Haas.

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