‘S.W.A.T.’: Jay Harrington Promises ‘I’m Not Going Anywhere,’ Talks Directing Pilot Parallels
“It seems to be how we do it. They can’t keep us down,” S.W.A.T. star Jay Harrington says of the show’s second uncancellation in the span of one year.
Harrington directed the penultimate episode of what is no longer the final season but just the seventh. (At the time of filming it, however, he thought their days were numbered.) In “Allegiance,” airing May 10, the squad must figure out why a crew of violent eco-terrorists have kidnapped the teenage son of an energy company executive. Meanwhile, Hondo’s (Shemar Moore) involvement in a shooting draws outrage from the very community he’s dedicated his career to protecting. Plus, as Deacon is called on to help with the escalating crisis, he’s forced to confront nagging doubts about his retirement.
Below, Harrington talks about finding out the show was getting an eighth season, directing the next episode, and Deacon’s retirement.
Talk about finding out about that second uncancellation. I know it came pretty close to you finishing filming.
Jay Harrington: Yeah, we were only a few days out and we were shooting kind of far away and on the ride home the night before, Shemar had been talking and he called me at home and said, “It’s looking good, but let’s keep our fingers crossed. You never know.” And the next day, we got to work and all these higher ups and executives and all sorts of people were there and they played it really well, close to the vest. They kind of made an announcement of, “Thanks so much for all your work. Seven seasons is a huge accomplishment. We’re proud of you and thank you. I believe Shemar has something to say.” And then he got up and kind of dropped the bomb and said, “Let’s do 22 more.” So it was awesome.
What excited you about this next episode’s script as a director?
To know that going into it, it was going to be the second to last possibly forever… It kind of is a buildup of a lot of stuff over all the years, so there were a couple moments in the script that were just sort of handed to me that I wanted to call back to our actual first episode. And there was a sequence on location where we had the team assembled and I kind of just wanted to match it in a sense visually from what Justin Lin had done in our pilot, and it really turned out great. So there’s a few of those in there that I hope fans that have watched since the beginning will key into and say, “Oh, that reminds me of something I saw once.”
On top of the search for a kidnapped teenager and the eco-terrorists who took him, Hondo has to deal with the aftermath of a shooting. What can you preview?
Yeah, it starts right away, literally with a bang. Deacon and Annie [Bre Blair] are having dinner with Hondo and Nichelle [Rochelle Aytes], and he gets a S.W.A.T. call. And of course I’m in the phase of being retired for a couple weeks. So it’s that, oh boy, I’m kind of walking out the door with him as if to go respond, and then well, nope, that’s not me anymore.
And Hondo finds himself in a situation as help arrives where there’s a shooting incident. Again, it goes back to our pilot with Buck [Louis Ferreira], but this plays out very differently. But he carries that with him throughout the episode because of the optics on him as a police officer. But he’s not only dealing with that, he is dealing with losing his team as time ticks—these kids that have been kidnapped, the clock is ticking, [but] it’s also Street’s [Alex Russell] gone, Luca’s [Kenny Johnson] gone, Deacon’s gone, and then there’s some inner turmoil and some tension going on with the existing team members. So he’s kind of losing his mind in a sense.
And ultimately I get to have a great turn as I’m no longer working there, but I come by and I’m there for him and we have a nice scene talking about stuff. But it’s a really great episode for Shemar where he’s not just dealing with a shooting, but he’s dealing with losing everything that he’s used to.
That was a really nice scene of me still being at headquarters and kind of trying to get out of there because I feel out of place. But I wanted to stage it in a way that, oftentimes we talk to people, you’re right there and camera’s over your shoulder and you’re so close. But I specifically wanted to create some distance between us and it shows my conflict of being there. It shows Hondo being alone, and that was important. I had a lot of fun shooting that one.
Speaking of that, talk about directing Shemar because you could see the inner turmoil throughout the episode as it’s building because he has so much that’s on him.
It’s funny. When you’re in a scene, it’s like, “Alright, cut.” And then I go and start talking to him. It’s a strange feeling because as an actor you would never just turn to your costar and be like, “I have some thoughts.” But we’ve gotten along and been friends for so long at this point that he’s so receptive to it. And it’s not that he doesn’t think of the things that I’m bringing, it’s just that I can kind of key into getting him thinking about something, and he’s like, “I got it, I got it. Lemme try this.” So for me, it was, “Don’t lean too much on guilt of what may or may not have happened with the beginning of the episode, but really carry all these seven years of losing all your pals and how that’s going to feel because we’re going to be done in a couple weeks for good.” So he really keyed into that. It was nice to see that side of Hondo.
Deacon is retired, but he still helps out on this case. How does that go and what feelings about retiring and leaving behind S.W.A.T. does that bring up in him?
Yeah, he definitely has some mixed feelings because he shows up just to offer some advice based on a contact that he’d made with his other job, but he finds himself back at work witnessing some kind of arguments with the team members and just stuff where he would’ve certainly stepped in in the past but knows it’s not really his place anymore. And there’s a couple moments of being, I don’t know, a fish out of water in a sense and uncomfortable being back at the headquarters. So that’s going to play a lot into—I know a lot of people are thinking the way the story has gone is I’m done and I’m gone. I’m not going anywhere, but we have two episodes to really see how this plays out. I think people are going to love it.
