[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Sheriff Country series premiere “Pilot.”]
Uh-oh, Sheriff Country just kicked off its first season with the one case that Mickey Fox (Morena Baccarin) can’t be part of: one in which her daughter, Skye (Amanda Arcuri), is, at the very least, a person of interest.
The series premiere introduces the town of Edgewater from Mickey’s perspective, after we’ve gotten to know it on Fire Country for years. Just as Mickey has to prove she should be sheriff — the other candidate? Boone (Matt Lauria), and oh, yes, there’s conflict — the final moments introduce a murder she can’t take lead on. Instead, it’s Boone, who had given his two weeks notice after Mickey was named sheriff, and Cassidy (Michele Weaver), whom Mickey discovered is dating her ex-husband Travis (Christopher Gorham), who take Skye into the station after the girl discovers (or so she says?) her boyfriend dead.
Below, showrunner Matt Lopez teases what’s to come in the murder investigation, how Mickey handles it, and more.
Talk about kicking off the series with Mickey’s daughter a person of interest, at least, in a murder. Mickey believes her that she didn’t kill Brandon, but is she right to?
Matt Lopez: One of the things I personally, just as a viewer, love about the show and love about what we’re creating is Mickey’s a character who straddles two worlds. She grew up with a father who is, let’s face it, rather roguishly charming but also a career criminal, and yet she’s the sheriff. And what we will explore in series is how Skye is very much a Fox. She’s got some of grandpa, and she’s got some of Mickey. And that story launches us like a rocket ship coming out of the first episode. And without giving anything away, I’ll say there are some really delightful twists and turns where we will wonder, is Mickey right to place her trust in her daughter? And we’re very fascinated as storytellers about, what does the sheriff do when her own daughter is implicated in a case that the sheriff, because of that conflict of interest can’t be a part of? And then you throw in the additional twist that the man charged with investigating Skye’s case is a guy who Mickey has a very fraught recent history with. There’s some great complications there.
How hard is it going to be for Mickey to just be a mom and not the sheriff when it comes to that?
That’s a fantastic question, and in many ways if you could have been on the season pitch that I gave to the studio and network, it probably was only six months ago, but it feels like six years ago. That is essentially — you’ve hit exactly the heart of her character and her journey in Season 1. It is constantly on the one side being the sheriff with all the responsibility that comes with. And then on the other side being, as you put it, a mother but also a daughter, a mentor to Cassidy, an ex-wife to Travis. These are the two sides and they’re constantly in tension with each other. And Morena Baccarin, who so memorably portrays Mickey and she just nails it, she walks that line. You constantly feel for her and she always has a way of surprising you, but that tension is something will play all season.
It’s the two sides of Mickey, right? She is on the one hand this extremely strong law enforcement officer, and yet her superpower in many ways is her human touch, her ability to reach out to people. We like to say how in the old days of the westerns and in some, I think, delightful ways, our show is kind of a new kind of western. They used to call the guns that the sheriffs had, they called them peacemakers. And in the writers’ room, we often talk about how Mickey carries a peacemaker and she’s very good with it — she’s like an incredible shot — but she also has the ability to be a peacemaker. And seeing both sides of that duality in her is something that I think viewers are going to love.
What can you say about how long this murder investigation will play out? Is that a season-long arc? Part of the season?
It is part of the season. It is not season long. I think viewers can expect the first few episodes, that to be a sort of delicious ingredient, but not our only ingredient. We’re also telling story for some of our other characters for Cassidy, we’re very much in sort of the Fire Country model in that way, which you have obviously Bode is very much the hub of the wheel on that show, but we also, we go with Manny, we go with Jake, we go with those other characters.
Boone did quit, but it feels like what’s going on with Skye could possibly change that after this investigation is over. What can you say about that and the Boone and Mickey dynamic considering how contentious it was before and now he’s the one leading this investigation?
Yeah, Mickey and Boone have such a fantastic story that plays out through the first two episodes and the ones coming out of that. And it was so gratifying — when you put two actors together, you’re hoping it’s going to go great and you’re hoping that chemistry is going to be there, but sometimes you just don’t control that. Well, Morena Baccarin and Matt Lauria from their first moment meeting to each other, it was like, oh, these two are going to be fantastic on screen.
Brooke Palmer/CBS
So, in terms of Boone and Mickey, they’re in a tough spot. They were once partners and extremely, extremely close. And as we’ll unpack over the first few episodes — and they will have to confront their lingering feelings about — is she was named the sheriff and he was passed over and now he works for her, and how does he navigate that? How do they come to a place where they realize they complement each other so well that, as an outsider from Oakland, California — what we’ll discover about Boone is he’s a big city guy and so that affects the way he looks at life, at policing, at law enforcement and all of it. And what we tell through the first few episodes is very much the story of, can they restore that relationship to where it was before? And then if they can, take it even further to the next level.
Sheriff Country, Regular Time Period Premiere, Friday, October 24, 8/7c, CBS
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