In Thursday’s episode of Cardinal, we meet the family behind the killings and Randall’s duplicity catches up with him.
[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
We see the seeds of Randall’s discontent without diving too deeply into them, once Cardinal and Delorme piece together Sam’s anonymous tip. Sam has her own issues when she’s further menaced for what she knows.
Mama (Rya Kihlstedt) makes herself known with a frightening level of control over her young flock of followers. Kreeger (Tom Jackson) witnesses that firsthand when he’s held captive for reasons not yet revealed.
Cardinal faces his first holiday after losing Catherine when Kelly arrives home for Thanksgiving and finds her dad coping in his own unique way. Showrunner Patrick Tarr wrote the episode directed by Daniel Grou. In the next installment from our interview, Grou talks about block shooting and working with his cast.
“We block shoot the whole thing like a movie. It’s one piece with six chapters. You’re constantly keeping the arc in your mind,” Grou explains. “That’s one of the challenges of shooting. [The tone changes] so you’re keeping the actors aware of where they’re coming from psychologically and where they’re going.”
“You may [shoot scenes from] episodes 1, 4, and 6 in the same day but you’re not in the same place psychologically. So that’s a challenge. That’s what’s fun.”
“You’re keeping the story straight in your mind. You’re always asking yourself how they’re reacting and how they should be living and what their mindset is. That’s what you do.”
“That’s the great part of the job … to get inside the skin of someone and figure out how they’re feeling about stuff.”
The character of Mama is new territory for Khilstead, and Grou says that’s precisely why she was a great fit for the role. “For Rya, we looked at her stuff and thought [she] would be interesting for that character,” he shares.
“Rya hadn’t played a part like this before. She was totally into it and totally committed and loved that we challenged her in that way. She was out of her normal world. She pushed herself and everybody else to come up with the goods and that was amazing of her.”
“All the actors did that and pushed each other to come up with a different take. Everybody steps and up and it creates a great ensemble of players. I like to put actors in roles they hadn’t played before. You see something in people — like Billy hadn’t played a part like this before. The best part of this job is working with actors.”
Cardinal airs Thursday night at 9pm ET on CTV. You can watch the first two seasons and the first two episodes of Season 3 now on CTV’s website and CTV Go. Click here for all of our coverage.
Photos Courtesy of CTV
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