TVLINE | She’s such a data-driven person, her whole career. And then this inexplicable thing happens, and she seems so sure.
Yeah, she’s sure. She knows. So I don’t have to know, but I know that she knows. That’s how I would make peace with these things. Like, I don’t have to understand it. She understands it.
TVLINE | She’s made a lot of comments this season about how she’s made sacrifices, done things that people shouldn’t have to do. How much do you think, in her mind, was for the greater good, versus how much of her was hoping that her actions would fix this terrible tragedy in her life?
I think it’s both of those things. I do think she was working for the greater good, starting with her family and her immediate loved ones and going wider with the whole of the Paradise community. But I think it also is, when you start talking about alternate timelines and quantum physics, can you go back and erase the things that had to play out as they did in the days that we watched, in the world that we first came to know? If that makes sense. [Laughs]
TVLINE | She takes a lot in stride as the episode goes on: Xavier’s reappearance, Torabi’s admission that she killed Jane. Do you think there’s a possibility she’s not engaging with a lot of it because she hopes that it all will be fixed at some point in the future/past?
The reveal of her son being alive just shifts something in her, and then everything is just like extra. Everything else is like the, the cherry on the cake. Life is the cherry on the cake. [Exhales] Yeah, it’s pretty heavy, Sinatra’s journey, with that final sacrifice she made. I don’t think she’s thinking — I wasn’t thinking —that she’s going down with the ship because she thinks she might be able to come back. I think it’s more selfless than that. I think she really believes if someone doesn’t do this, we all die. The thing that was driving her all these years was the grief and the loss, and with that resolved, the better person showed up. And she’s making the ultimate sacrifice for her family and the community that she has been trying to protect this whole time, g-ddamn it! [Laughs]
TVLINE | No one is ever actually gone on your show. Flashbacks are a beautiful thing. Are you allowed to speak to whether we’ll see you in Season 3?
I hope so! I’d love to. When you’re part of something that hits in a certain way and people really respond to, it’s such a special thing. Knowing that this is a three-season thing, to pop up in that season would be great. But I don’t know. I couldn’t say.
TVLINE | Do you know how this all wraps up?
No idea. I can’t wait. I was with Thomas Doherty [who plays Link] today, who’s about to start filming the next season. I’m like, “Tom, what happens? What happens in the first episode?!” [Laughs] I’ll be watching along with everybody else next season.