The first part of Watson’s Season 1 finale left off on a cliffhanger on Sunday night, and Peter Mark Kendall spoke to PopCulture.com about what happened.
In “Your Life’s Work, Part 1,” both Adam and Stephens Croft fell ill after being targeted in a sinister plot.
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While at first Adam was just exhibiting odd behavior, and it was believed that he had relapsed on opiates, Stephens soon followed, and both of them were admitted to UHOP. And they quickly got worse. The team worked as hard as they could, working overtime at that, to try to come up with a solution. While one came, unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, and the episode ended on a pretty big cliffhanger that is going to have fans wondering what will happen next. Check out what Kendall, who plays the Croft twins, had to say about the episode and that surprising cliffhanger. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity).
PopCulture: Both Adam and Stephens, at different times, exhibit odd behavior and are admitted to UHOP. Were you told in advance that the finale would center on them, or did you find out when you got the script for it?
Peter Mark Kendall: I knew that something was cooking. The showrunner Craig [Sweeny] and our amazing writers and the producers, they don’t wanna give too much away ahead of time in case it changes. But I kinda knew that something was coming when I didn’t know exactly what. So it was so much fun in getting those scripts, reading them, and seeing such amazing and kind of juicy things, juicy parts and story beats to be able to work on.
PC: Kind of going off of that, while in the hospital room together, they both really start to open up to each other and how they really feel about the other. Was it difficult tapping into those emotions between the brothers at all, especially since you are essentially just talking to yourself?
Kendall: Thanks for that question. That’s cool. I think up until this point in the show, in the first season, we’ve seen them kind of be very argumentative. And there’s kind of an animosity. And we haven’t seen a closeness, perhaps. And I think that it was really, really fun and really a great challenge to see the ways in which they could work towards something that might bring them closer. They’re both sick, and so they have nothing else to do but decide to kind of work on themselves as people and as brothers.
But it was such an amazing challenge and amazing puzzle to solve of how to chart both of these people’s stories in the way that they are moving forward. At the same time, I would kind of have to do a lot of the work before I should’ve showed up on the day just to make sure that I had kind of directed the scene for myself the best that I could, knowing that I need to still be a very open ended collaborator on the day with the directors and the writers and things like that. But a lot of work. A lot of fun work.
PC: The brothers do eventually both end up in a coma. What can you tease for how that will carry into the second episode?
Kendall: We have this amazing kind of cliffhanger of only having one enough cure for one of the twins. And so, it’ll be kind of fun for the audience to see how that problem is solved, whether through fate or choosing between these two guys who look so similar but are so different.
PC: As you just said, the episode ends with Watson revealing that they do have a cure, but there’s only one dose of it, and they have to choose. What was your reaction when you first heard about that cliffhanger and the possibility of either Stephens or Adam maybe dying by the end of the finale?
Kendall: I didn’t have a hope necessarily for which one gets the cure and which doesn’t. I thought that both would wake up and kind of wish that the other person had gotten it. I think that it was a little harrowing to be like, ‘Oh my gosh. What does this mean for the fate of one of the characters?’ And that was a little scary. But I think it’s really, really cool storytelling and such a great way to tie in all of the stuff that we’ve been talking about all season with the work on genes and DNA and diagnostic labs and have having two of our doctors under the microscope and under the care of the rest of them was such a cool way to do it. So it’s very exciting.
The conclusion of the two-part Watson Season 1 finale airs on Sunday, May 11 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.