Sheriff Country is back from its long winter hiatus on February 27 to finally resume the assault on Edgewater’s police station that ignited in December. And in “Crucible, Part 2,” things are going from bad to worse to world-changing as the situation escalates in this tense hour that pits Sheriff Mickey Fox (the season’s coolest new action badass Morena Baccarin) and her squad against the town’s gun-hoarding, militia-like Barlow family.
As fans recall, the trouble began in “Crucible, Part 1” after Mickey interceded in a custody battle among members of the Barlow clan, who run a remote ranch that refuses to recognize law-enforcement dictates. Just as Mickey was handling the issue with the family’s patriarch, Enoch (Michael Gaston), the Feds swept in and arrested the guy for tax evasion.
“Mickey is blindsided when he gets arrested and she knows, from the moment those Feds walk in the door and arrest him, that there is going to be blowback for me,” says showrunner Matt Lopez. “She was able to talk him down. He was all ginned up because of his grandson being in this emergency protective order [because] he wants custody of his grandson. And in classic Mickey fashion, she was able to deescalate. And that’s Mickey in a nutshell,” he explains. “In Episode 9, she’s the peacemaker. And in 10, she’s wielding a peacemaker. She can do that when she needs to.”
Good thing, since the rest of the angry Barlows have cut the power and unleashed their fury on our trapped heroes like nobody could have expected.
Darren Goldstein/CBS
“We were inspired a lot by movies like Die Hard,” Lopez continues of the siege, set entirely in the station, with characters hunkered down in various spots — and handling varying crises. While Mickey and partner Boone (Matt Lauria in full John McClane mode, complete with the white tank top) try to keep the Barlows at bay by the entrance, Deputy Sheriff Cassidy (Michele Weaver) is deep in the facility with the in-custody patriarch Enoch (Michael Gaston) and a severely injured Travis (Christopher Gorham).
But for all of the intensity, trauma, and destruction (the station is messed up!) on screen, “it was really fun,” Lopez confesses. “It was a challenge that we embraced in the writers’ room early on to tell this true sort of bottle episode that takes place on our stage.”
Adding that the production schedule meant filming December’s midseason finale and this hour at the same time, “we had to shoot [Episodes] 9 and 10 essentially in order,” Lopez explains. “And so for actors like Morena and Matt, who have done features, it felt a little bit more like feature filmmaking, like we’re telling the story in order or a play almost, which I think they liked. They kind of dug it.”
If Mickey’s ex — with whom she shared a very passionate interaction with before the Barlow chaos erupted — or any of the key players make it out of the ambush, expect major shifts when they try to return to normalcy, Lopez says. “We really play into that. And for each of Boone, Cassidy, and Mickey, it presents different challenges. They respond to it differently,” he previews. “It impacts their relationships with the other characters in the show differently. Some are able to take it better than others.”
When asked what that means for the possible reconciliation between Mickey and Travis that was brewing before the break, Lopez simply states, “The next episode is ‘The Aftermath’ and is very much about how they move forward physically and emotionally.”
Sheriff Country, Midseason Premiere, Friday, February 27,8/7c, CBS
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