‘R.J. Decker’: Why Scott Speedman Likes ‘Unique’ Change to R.J. & Emi’s Relationship
R.J. Decker kicks off its second season by taking its will they/won’t they — more like, when will they again? — couple and making what Scott Speedman says is “a pretty interesting choice.” Warning: Spoilers for the R.J. Decker Season 2 premiere ahead!
It’s been two months since corrupt politician Victor Ochoa’s (David Zayas) murder when the new season of the breezy drama picks up, and private investigator R.J. has sort of been steering clear of his daughter, Emi (Jaina Lee Ortiz). R.J. and Emi had hit the pause button when it came to their relationship (and figuring out what it could be) in the Season 1 finale, and now, she understandably needs time.
R.J.’s ex-wife Catherine (Adelaide Clemens) is the one to actually check on her, bringing her groceries to spare her a trip to the market since she can’t go anywhere without someone wanting to interview her, then push R.J. to be what Emi needs right now: a friend. And so that’s what he offers up at the end of the premiere.
It’s a new avenue for the two to go down, since they’ve never actually tried that. They slept together right before she helped send him to jail by lying on the witness stand in the premiere, then they seemed ready to move forward by the finale, only for her father to be killed. They’ve been the definition of “it’s complicated.” But Speedman likes that the show is going this route.
“They come into and out of each other’s lives through this season. That’s a pretty interesting choice to make, and I thought it was kind of refreshing and unique to not break them up, but just pull them apart at the beginning of the season just so we could explore more story with them — and not necessarily in a romantic way or other romantic partners or anything like that, but just I think story-wise, it put us in an interesting place,” Speedman tells TV Insider in the video interview above.
“For her character, it made a lot of sense just coming off the death of her father,” he continues. “I think there was a genuine attempt to try to be friends and be in each other’s lives and see where that takes them. And I think as we go forward, and hopefully we’ll do many, many, many more episodes, we’ll get to see how that plays out. If the friend thing works, if it doesn’t, do they fall back into a romantic situation, and is it more ‘real’ this time because they’ve never really been boyfriend and girlfriend or significant other either?”
Something else that’s new for the show is how it kicks off its Season 2 premiere right after Dancing With the Stars, with two of the dance competition’s pros, Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy, joining in for a flash mob to the Backstreet Boys‘ “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back),” used by R.J. to catch a pickpocket named by The Bachelor‘s Joey Graziadei.
Disney/Dana Hawley
“I was kind of blown away with the size and scope of it. I’m deeply immersed in the scripts that are coming in and I’m working hard to have everything memorized. I have always huge speeches. So, I got to set, and it was a hot day in Fort Lauderdale, and I was lucky enough to watch from a distance and just be amazed at the spectacle, really,” Speedman shares. He wasn’t privy to the conversations around the song choice but admits, “I think everybody was humming that song.”
The case-of-the-week involves a group of bank robbers who distract people by not wearing pants; the getaway driver is Steven, who was in prison with R.J. and saved his life. And so R.J. is torn when this friend wants him to lie to Catherine’s wife, Mel (Bevin Bru), who’s working the case — Sasheer Zamata plays an FBI agent with whom he had a “bad” hookup years ago. R.J. does cover for his friend but eventually calls in Mel when the case takes a turn, and he finds the robbers dead.
“That’s a tricky one,” Speedman says. “I had questions about that, too, just because of the overall stakes of him going back to jail. I mean, if he goes back to jail, it’s for a long time if he breaks the law. So, that was an interesting thing… It’s a need. He’s not going to censor that need. He’s just going to go and do before. He’s going to act before he thinks in a lot of situations and deal with it and try to get out of it in many different ways.”
Watch the video above for more from Scott Speedman, including about the investigation into Victor’s murder.
R.J. Decker, Tuesdays, 10/9c, ABC
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