‘Continuum’ season 3 premiere post-mortem: Rachel Nichols on Kiera, Alec shocker
Have you recovered from the “Continuum” premiere just yet? It was a lot to take in, but it does certainly set the stage for a heck of the rest of the season. (Obviously, there are MAJOR spoilers from tonight’s episode ahead.)
At the end of the hour on Showcase (which will premiere on Syfy April 4) learned that one Kiera Cameron is now, and that the surviving one has two major missions now: Not only does she need to try and figure out what in the world happened here, but figure out how she can determine which Alec Sadler is the right one to carry through to the future. Suffice it to say, there are difficult choices ahead.
The following interview with Rachel Nichols is the spoiler-filled second part to the one that we shared earlier today, which was built up of teasers for the season as a whole.
CarterMatt – Time travel has always been a big component of the show, but this season seems to be almost more mind-bendy than ever before. When you were going in and reading the scripts, is that something that you were seeing?
Rachel Nichols – Yeah. We’re really involved with the Freelancers. We really find out who the Freelancers are, what they do, what their purpose is. At the end of season 2, Terry Chen, who plays Curtis Chen, is seemingly back from the dead. That has to be explained at the start of season 3. And we’ve got a timeline that has two Alecs in it and two Kieras in it, and poor Carlos. We’ve got Carlos, who knows about the future and time travel and all of that, but who has to now deal with this dead Kiera, and then this sort of hybrid Kiera. There are questions about who to trust.
And Kiera has to do the same thing with Alec. He’s gotta decide which Alec is going to bring about the future that is best for the world. There are characters that we introduce throughout the season. One is from a totally different timeline in the future, and he has no idea who Alec Sadler is, even though in the timeline that [Kiera] was from, Alec Sadler was pretty much the ruler of the free world.
How do you think that Kiera is going to make the decision between the two Alecs, and try to figure out which one of them is good and which one is bad for the path that needs to be taken for the future?
That’s a good question, because you have to wonder if it is the Alec Sadler that goes back in time to save Emily who is going to bring about the future that we want, or is the original Alec Sadler who didn’t go back in time but knows what he is projected to be in the future. Is he going to be the one who becomes who he is [in the future]? … These are questions for her, and there’s no easy answer. I don’t know if there is a scene where we have to kill one of the Alecs, but for me it would be one of the hardest scenes, to have to kill a version of Alec Sadler. It’s complicated for Kiera, and it’s complicated for me, as well. (Laughs.)
Obviously one of the Alecs is going to have to go away, and you wonder if there is a way that this can happen other than death.
Probably not in the long run … You can sort of kidnap them or house them somewhere, or do something [like that] with them. You’ll find out soon?
So what would you say to maybe people who didn’t see all of season 2 or are somewhat new to the series to encourage them to tune in [to the rest of season 3]?
I think once you start off with the idea that there are two Alec Sadlers and there are two Kiera Camerons, some of our favorite characters are back. Ian Tracey’s Jason, who is Alec Sadler’s son, is back. And then you got some real interesting [stuff happening] at Liber8, you’ve got Kiera partnering up in strange ways with Garza throughout the season. You’re obviously dealing with the choice of which Alec [to take out], and the Freelancers are introduced and [Kiera] has to work with them. I kind of don’t trust them, but I have to do what they say. There’s a lot going on, and it sounds dense, but it is not that hard to understand. It is just one jaw-dropping gasp after another.
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Photo: Showcase