‘The Rainmaker’s Austin Nichols Unpacks Tom & Bruiser’s Past, That Severed Head Shocker & More

Things took a disastrously deadly turn on the latest episode of The Rainmaker, and now, everything has changed for Bruiser Lyman (Lana Parrilla) and her ex, Tom (Austin Nichols). Warning: Spoilers for The Rainmaker Season 2 Episode 5, “The Coral Sea,” ahead! 

Much of the episode took place in the courtroom, as Bruiser, Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan), and Deck Shifflet (P.J. Byrne) fought to earn class certification and spring Victor Saffredes (Asher DeLand) from detention amid increased violence and retribution against him. On both fronts, they were successful, and, after Victor’s stepfather went missing from his fishing boat, Dot Black (Karen Bryson) tearfully agreed to give her dear Donny’s room to the boy and care for him herself. It wasn’t as simple as it sounds, of course — the judge was seconds from dismissing the case before Deck rushed in with a new list of clients, and the attorneys had to prove that they were financially capable of handling such a sprawling case with Dot accepting a settlement offer she didn’t want and pledging the proceeds to this case. However, all in all, it was a successful day, professionally, for most of the lawyers.

However, that was just half the story. The episode also saw Tom and Boone (Liam O’Halloran) sniping at each other, with Bruiser catching a few strays, before being advised to kiss and make up, so to speak. Tom also attempted to patch things up with his wife, Lynette (Sarah O’Connor), showing up to a meeting spot by the pier with a handful of flowers. However, things took a dark turn when Gator’s goons showed up and attempted to murder him on the spot. After a violent tussle, Tom managed to escape and ran straight to Bruiser’s house, waking her with the news that they’d both need to flee. As she packed her things, though, she got an eerie feeling and opened Lynette’s purse-turned-retainer to find a severed head inside that looked to belong to Lynette.

According to Austin Nichols, this discovery is going to mark a major “turning point” for Tom — and, by extension, Bruiser and the firm — as the tone of his story becomes much, much darker and more serious than it had been in the first half of the season.

Read on to see what Nichols told TV Insider about the character’s journey so far and what’s next for him in the back half of Season 2!

How familiar were you with The Rainmaker — the book, the series, the movie, anything  — before joining?

Austin Nichols: Most of my love for John Grisham is for the movies, and I hate saying that, but I just never really read John Grisham books. But A Time to Kill, The Firm, and A Few Good Men, I think all three of them were incredible movies, and The Rainmaker was an incredible movie as well. And when I got this call, I got really excited just to be asked to be a part of such a kind of an incredible author’s work and career, and then also it’s now Michael Seitzman and all these other great writers and actors, and it’s just cool to be invited into this world.

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Yeah, and you get to do a cool thing, which is go toe-to-toe with Lana Parrilla. What’s it like for you just to have that kind of screen buddy so many times, where it’s animosity, it’s heat, it’s anger, it’s danger, it’s so many different things all at once?

I call Lana a heat-seeking truth missile, and I love working with her. Every scene, every day, is focused, and she is looking for honesty and truth, and she’s looking for interesting moments. And she’s a great leader and a great scene partner because if you are ever lost or having trouble, she’s there for you, and she’s going to pick you up, and she’s going to help you, and I just adore her.

The backstory that we get to see between the two characters is pretty nutty. I mean, it seems like Tom maybe regrets letting Bruiser go and marrying this woman in the first place when we see him.

Yeah, it’s interesting because this is one of the things that I was working out in my mind and my backstory as we started reading scripts and getting ready to go shoot. He messed up; he cheated; and then he married this other woman and has been with her for 20 years. And in some way, Bruiser’s still been in his life, but not very much. And I think Lana gave an interview recently where she thought that Lynette was also in her life in a small way… So I feel like we’ve had to do some work to sort of understand this threesome and how these characters are evolving around each other and bumping into each other and what does their life really look like. Ultimately, I think it’s really fun and sexy and silly, and one of the things I keep telling people was, I felt so lucky to be on this show this season because I felt like I just came to work and had fun every day, and Tom’s lighter and kind of has coasted through life on his looks and his charisma and has done quite well at it, but he doesn’t hold the stakes that, say, the other case in the show does about the juvenile prison — until 205, until this episode, when mistakes really go through the roof.

On that note, he knew that Gator was involved in all this. And he put Bruiser in jeopardy by coming to her and bringing her into this case. Is she like a security blanket for him, or does he really just think she’s the only one who can handle the legal side of it?

Tom knows she’s a great lawyer, and he would be in good hands. But I think Tom also knows that there’s a history between Bruiser and Gator, and I do think he wants to take advantage of that relationship.

We learned that he lied about how the debts really came to be. Seeing how he feels about his wife, why did he put up with all that for so long?

I mean, I guess you could say in relationships, people do this all the time. People stay in things that are unhealthy for a long time. They let things go. They don’t want to deal with things, and before you know it, years have gone by, and now it’s this crazy, scary monster in the corner of the dark room, and you never dealt with it. So I kind of feel like it was something like that. I think that Tom and Lynette had passion and fire but didn’t necessarily have a healthy foundation for a long marriage.

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The relationship between Tom and Boone, it’s so fun to see your chemistry with Liam. Can you talk about establishing that kind of paternalistic relationship, but also one that comes to a point of obviously being very jealous when he gets with Bruiser?

That’s true. It is interesting in that way. I will never forget the first moment I saw Liam was at the soundstage, and he was in a van, and I was getting in the van, and I knew it was him. And I go, “Are you Liam?” And we just immediately grabbed each other and hugged each other, and we didn’t have to do any work. It was there. It was all there. We’re brothers. We’re very similar. Also, because I’m older, the father/older brother figure thing just really happened naturally, and we were able to spend some time together in Ireland outside of work and get to know each other. But Liam, I think, has got a big career ahead of him. I think he’s a dynamite actor and just a great guy. I had such a blast doing scenes with him.

I gotta say, I know we’re talking about 205, but in 204, when I saw him and Lana, I just couldn’t even watch it. It was so weird when you spent months and months playing a character and investing in relationships, and then you see that, and it’s so hard for me to watch.

When he’s taking Bruiser to task, did that help you find that moral high ground that he suddenly finds himself on, even with everything he’s done, when he’s criticizing them?

I wanted that naivete — or his ignorance is probably a better word for that — to not come off as cold and calculated, more just Tom’s kind of dumb… They always tell you, “You can never play dumb. Your character’s never dumb,” and all that, and I don’t think of Tom in that way, but I do think he can be a little self-centered and ignorant, and really selfish, and just thinking about how this is affecting him and not seeing that Bruiser’s doing the exact same thing I did, and I’m guilty of the same sin.

It’s funny because she calls him out for it right away, and it seems to sink in. Do you think he’s manipulative towards Boone? Because there’s this moment where, in Episode 5, he apologizes, and it seems kind of scripted. Do you think he really felt that, or is it just what he needs to do? 

I think, in the deepest way, Tom cares about Boone, and he wants him to succeed, and he wants him to have a great career as a ball player because I see myself in him, and I f**ked my career up… I want for him what I missed out on, so I truly believe that Tom does care, and he wants to right this wrong and protect Boone and do the best he can to fix this. However, Tom will lie, and Tom will do whatever he has to do to make things get where they need to be. So his dishonesty just keeps coming back, and I love that in Bruiser’s phone, my character is “Lying Liar.” I completely forgot about that from the scripts because I was never there when they shot those inserts of phones. So I was just reminded of that watching the episodes. But it’s true, Tom does have a problem with the truth, and it just keeps coming back, and it keeps coming back. But the one thing Michael Seitzman and I talked about a lot was Tom’s redemptive quality, and there is redemption there. And I think it comes from truly caring about Boone and truly caring about Bruiser.

Christopher Barr / USA Network / Versant Media

On a similar note, you know, as far as intention goes, when he shows up to the park and he’s waiting for his wife with the flowers, what does he really think is going to happen? What do you think his intentions are there before everything just goes badly?

I guess Bruiser said something to Tom before, which was, “Not only do you need to keep this marriage together, but you need to keep her happy.” And showing up with the flowers? A great question; is that fully sentimental and sweet and hoping that their relationship stays healthy or they can fix it, or is there some manipulation there? And I would have to say there’s definitely a little manipulation there. Yeah. For the time being, everything has gone pear-shaped and is crashing, and I need to get her in the best place and get our relationship in the best place possible, so we can get out of this mess.

What happens next is you engage in some pretty gnarly fights, and it’s not the first time we’ve seen Tom just get his butt beat — there was the night with the batting practice gone wrong. So, how did you prepare for those scenes, and did you actually get hurt at all?

We had a huge rehearsal. I remember we had to drive an hour outside of Dublin to this very cool stunt facility where they have all the pads, and they can do all kinds of training, but then they can also film stunts that they’re working on to send to the directors and producers, and we had a huge, huge rehearsal with bicycles and scooters and chairs and boxes that we could fall into and pads we could fall into, and it was a blast. I mean, I love stunts. I love doing stunts. So that was a really fun day, and then when we took it out to the pier there for that night shoot, I was in heaven. I mean, people often complain about night shoots because it’s hard and it’s late and everybody’s tired. But I had a bunch of coffee, and I was all hyped up for that fight sequence that night, and I couldn’t have had more fun. And I remember… you see me running away at the end. I ran away like 20 times as fast as I could limping, and I just remember I was smiling the whole time because the camera was on the back of my head, and you never saw the front of me. But every time I’m running away, I was smiling because I just love doing stunts so much.

We talked about earlier how Tom can be a little dumb. That was your word. There’s a moment when, afterwards, the place he runs is straight to Bruiser’s house. To me, that seemed dumb because he’s in danger bringing it to her. Do you think in his mind maybe he’s there to protect her, or, again, is this the security blanket “she can fix it” coming in?

I think you’re right. I think it’s actually about protecting her, but at the same time, he doesn’t have Lynette anymore, and whether we think we’re still married or not, there’s something safe and known about Bruiser because we’ve known each other so long. We were married, and because she’s my lawyer, I do feel think Tom feels like it is a safe place to go, and yeah, there’s concern for her life as well. Of course, he wants to make sure she’s OK, but it’s all very dicey because you’re married to someone else. This is your ex. Now we’re involved with litigation, and there’s feelings. I mean, there are old feelings creeping back. So there’s a lot going on.

I love that line that he says about, “Oh, she’ll get tired of you and drop you, too, Boone.” Is that him taking a stab at Bruiser or warning Boone or both?

I think that Tom has kept up with Bruiser from a distance over the years, and he knows how she’s been with men. I think he’s telling the truth there. I think she got burned early on with me, and it’s been hard for her to commit again, to fall in love again, to go there, and so it’s caused her to cut and run many, many times over the years. I think that’s absolute truth, and I loved it because you wouldn’t know that Tom has necessarily been keeping up with her love life, but I think he’s been watching.

So getting to the big cliffhanger, we get to Bruiser’s house and what’s in the purse? It looks like Lynette’s head to me. That’s a pretty big jaw-dropper, quite literally. What’s going through Tom’s mind in that moment? And what can you tease about where this is going next, now that they just made this awful discovery?

“What’s in the purse?!” Yeah, I wanted to do a Brad Pitt Seven take. I might have actually done one. Maybe it’ll show up later. [Laughs] So this was a moment in Season 2 where I was very nervous because, like I said, I’ve kind of coasted in with charm and hoping Bruiser will help me out, and I’ve been keeping it light and just trying to make sure everything. “Maybe this will just get swept under the rug.” And then we see this. The entire trajectory of Tom’s arc in Season 2 changes. I mean, you can no longer skate through on a smile. I don’t know how much I can say because I don’t know if you can tell what it is in the bag, and I don’t want to say too much, but I will say that yeah, this is a turning point. This is a major turning point for Tom and for Bruiser as well, and everybody at the law firm, because where do you go from here? What do you do? Do you call the cops? Do you deal with this yourself, which has illegal ramifications? I mean, it’s a major, major moment that everything will hinge on from here moving forward.

The Rainmaker, Fridays, 10/9c, USA Network