‘A Million Little Things’: David Giuntoli on the Bigger Problem for Katherine Than Eddie Taking Pills

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for A Million Little Things Season 3, Episode 8, “The Price of Admission.”]

The lies stop now for Eddie (David Giuntoli), who was sober until he started taking pills for the pain after the accident that left him paralyzed. In the April 1 episode of A Million Little Things, the friend group becomes privy to what he’s been doing when Regina (Christina Moses) notices her Vicodin is missing. (Eddie took it.)

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Rome (Romany Malco) and Gary (James Roday Rodriguez) go to Eddie and Katherine’s (Grace Park) house to call their friend out but find him trying to pull himself up the stairs; he’s trying to get to his son, Theo (“the most adorable, non-animated Disney property,” says Giuntoli of Tristan Byon‘s character), after raging out on the car.

It belongs to a neighbor who yells at Theo that he doesn’t want “that China virus around here.” And that racist comment comes after one of Theo’s classmates asks him to wear a mask during their virtual class. (Though it may seem like the truth about Eddie taking pills may pull focus [for now], Eddie and Katherine will talk to Theo like they’d planned about what happened, Giuntoli says.)

Eddie not only admits to his friends that he’s screwed up, but when Katherine comes home, he tells his wife he’s been taking narcotics and can’t stop.

Giuntoli teases what’s next, why the next few episodes have been hard for him, and more.

ABC/Jack Rowand

Does Eddie feel relieved that his wife and friends know he’s been taking pills?

David Giuntoli: Yes. Eddie was feeling the weight and the pressure building on him throughout his time post-hospital. He hates, hates lying to Katherine. He started taking pills one at a time. He thought it could get him through the night, then the weekend, then he just spiraled as an addict. It slowly happened to him. He was not expecting it to become an out-of-control situation.

How’s Eddie and his state of mind at the end of this episode and in the next few episodes? He says he can’t stop taking the pills.

Eddie is spiraling. Eddie is absolutely under the spell of these narcotics and he knows he’s deep into his old habits of addiction. It’s not some place that is new for him to be. This is a situation he’s dealt with in the past, so he recognizes it and he’s terrified. And I think Eddie believes he’s going to lose everything, his entire family, because of what just happened.

ABC/Jack Rowand

We only see Eddie tell Katherine the truth and her immediate reaction. What’s next? Do we pick up immediately from that moment?

Yes, it takes off immediately from that moment. The conversation just continues in the next episode. It’s difficult for Katherine to hear, I would say. The biggest breach of trust was that he lied to her. I think Katherine would have been able to handle the news that he was taking these pills because he was in tremendous pain from a trauma — he was hit by a car, I’m not excusing him but it’s not like he started drinking for fun again — so she would have understood that. It’s the idea of hiding it is probably not going to be great for their relationship.

This comes after the show did a pretty good job of redeeming Eddie after the affair and making me root for him and Katherine. How worried should we be about their future?

As David Giuntoli the actor, it was devastating to watch Eddie and live as Eddie going through these steps and making all these mistakes because I have so much invested in him and Katherine and all they’ve worked for. I will just say the next few episodes for David Giuntoli have been hard to read. There’s some real difficult moments.

ABC/Jack Rowand

And this comes as she’s starting to lean on someone else, Alan [Terry Chen].

How many hot guys does she work with? There was Hunter [Henderson Wade], who was just a tasty treat, let’s be honest. Now we have Alan. Come on! What is going on?

Katherine and Eddie have worked through a lot. We have a son who we love more than anything. They may be able to work through this too, I just can’t really say.

What about Eddie’s relationship with Theo? Will that ever be the same? Rome talks with him.

Things are never really solved in a talk, are they? They might help in the moment. Theo’s at this impressionable age, he’s 11, and the things he’s seen his father go through are pretty jarring. Theo sees Eddie’s absolute drug-induced rage, whether this guy he raged out on deserved it or not — I believe he did. It’s very frightening for a son to see a father or a parent out of control and Eddie was out of control. Eddie’s been a great dad. They have a very strong relationship. We’ll see.

ABC/Jack Rowand

Gary’s getting Eddie into rehab. How’s that going to go?

Eddie’s looking for anything and he will happily go to rehab. He knows he needs it. He’s not going to pretend like he can overcome this addiction on his own. He knows he cannot.

Will we see more of Eddie’s recovery from the accident? As he says, he’s still in physical pain.

Yeah. Once you’re in a wheelchair, that pain might subside a little bit, but living in a wheelchair can be an excruciating existence. Imagine sitting all day for your work day but then compound that by all of the time. There’s going to always be discomfort. Eddie is now going to make sure he is recovering from his addiction. He is going to be able to get non-narcotic pain help. If he does get on a pain medication again, I don’t think it’s going to be done lightly. He will have a support system there to dole it out to him. We’ll touch a little bit on all of this.

ABC/Jack Rowand

I don’t think he understood that typical painkillers are not going to do the trick; I don’t care how many Advil you take, this is a serious injury with a tremendous amount of pain. Had Eddie gone in a little more understanding of that, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

A Million Little Things, Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC