‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’: Shemar Moore & Cast Talk ‘Sexy’ Chemistry, Ethan’s Secret Room & More

Hondo (Shemar Moore) has a new boss on S.W.A.T. Exiles, and to say they’re butting heads is an understatement. Plus, he chooses the Scout for his team … which is going to make the whole mole situation definitely complicated. TV Insider spoke with Moore, Adain Bradley, Ronen Rubinstein, and executive producer Jason Ning about that and much more. Warning: Spoilers for S.W.A.T. Exiles Season 1 Episode 2 ahead!

Hondo’s new commander is Pike (Lenora Crichlow), who is put in departments not functioning properly and tells him to turn around if he expects to bring back the “good ol’ days” of S.W.A.T. If he’s trying to prove he’s set up to fail, he can just quit, but if he wants to prove S.W.A.T. still matters, that’s harder. But it’s not just that — it turns out she was also on the Internal Affairs board that got him fired. Uh-oh.

“Pike is no joke,” Moore tells us in the video interview above. “Hondo doesn’t know what to do with her and that just continues. But I think that chemistry of them butting heads is fascinating and somewhat sexy. She’s a tough cookie. Hondo knows he can’t roll over her, but that goes both ways. So I think it’s an interesting game of chess between the two of them, but Hondo has to fight for his dignity, fight for his truth, protect himself. Hondo has no problem standing his ground, but neither does Pike. And so that’s an interesting duality. And I think over time each earns each other’s respect as they get to know each other.”

Courtesy of Starz

That “somewhat sexy” of course makes us wonder what could happen between the two… and so far, it doesn’t sound like it’s going where it seems like it could.

“I think the word on the street is something needs to happen between Hondo and Pike,” says Moore. “But that’s his captain, so business is business. … But there’s something sexy about it not happening, but you’re just feeling it. There’s something more intriguing about that.”

Adds Ning, “I think they realize each of them had preconceived notions about who the other was, and through working with them, some of those notions or those walls have come down, and there is a budding respect that’s beginning and hopefully will continue. There’s a couple places where that can go. It’s hopefully the beginning of a very strong, interesting relationship.”

Meanwhile, after Hondo tests the team, it’s Malik (Bradley) he makes scout … who, unbeknownst to him, is spying on him. And as he does, Hondo tells him that the job puts them in impossible situations, like, here, giving Jude (Ronen Rubinstein) the go-ahead to take a kill shot, and he knows he has at least one person he can count on. Yes, Malik is feeling torn about investigating Hondo after that.

“There’s got to be a lot of moral conflict,” points out Bradley. “At the end of the day, I think there is some truth in Episode 1 when he says he is here for Hondo. I think he respects Hondo a tremendous deal. And if you’re from that neighborhood and you’re a former Marine and you’ve lived a life of service, how can you not respect that character? Something that me and Jason Ning, our showrunner, worked on is really kind of toeing that line when to maybe show the respect and maybe when to show maybe there’s something going on under the surface.”

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Ning agrees. “If we’ve done our job right, we’ve shown that, in a way, Hondo has earned Malik’s respect by his actions,” he says. “That said, he still has the reasons why he’s doing what he’s doing. So there is conflict and hopefully that plays out and I’m glad that you picked up on that because that was the intent.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Jude brings the team their personnel files; he was hoping to find the answers he wanted in his, about whether he was responsible for someone dying while he was undercover, but it’s heavily redacted. Rubinstein confirms that an upcoming episode is dedicated to Jude’s past.

“I can truthfully say [it] is the proudest work of my life. And I cannot thank the writers enough for what they’ve kind of gifted me, and also just gave me so much insight into who Jude is and where he comes from, which is so important in crafting a character,” he raves. “We definitely explore what happened to him, why his file is blacked out, why he is such a mystery, and why he’s holding onto so much trauma and grief and it makes him a very sort of closed off young man. And there’s some serious stakes involved when it comes to Jude’s backstory.”

And for those wondering about Ethan’s (Freddy Miyares) secret room, the one that he tells the others is off-limits? Well, we will see inside.

“All I can say is that it’s a driving motivation for who he is as a character, and we do get to go inside that room at some point, and it’s in an emotionally fulfilling moment later in the season,” Ning teases. “We’ll understand how that affects him and who he is and why he is the way he is.”

Watch the full video interview above for more from the cast about this episode.

S.W.A.T. Exiles, Fridays, Starz