‘Quantico’ season 2, episode 7: How Blair Underwood prepared for torture scenes

We don’t think we’re exaggerating at all here when we say that Sunday night’s “Quantico” was the most intense of the season, and maybe one of the craziest ones of the entire series. There were elaborate torture sequences both in the present and the past, and the person who had it the worst for the longest period of time was Blair Underwood, whose character Owen wanted to teach the recruits at The Farm a lesson about interrogation — while at the same time also wanting to prove that he was still capable of being out in the field as an agent.

What may be just as surprising to you about anything in this episode is that Blair Underwood was actually excited to take on the challenge of doing these scenes, whether it be testing out the techniques to filming some of that extended time lapse that you saw on the show to get himself in the right frame of mind.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Josh Safran said the following about the process:

“We told him this was coming up, and he was incredibly excited to do it. He was up for everything; he knew how important the story was, and he was so game for it … By the way, we didn’t even have to dunk him. We could have dunked a double, but Blair was like, “No, I want to.” He’s like, “I’m a really good swimmer, I can hold my breath underwater for a really long time. Just dunk me.” Of course, we take measures here to make sure everybody’s protected, and we have a great stunt team. We still tried to make it as real and harrowing as possible, even with Tracy [Ifeachor] and the waterboarding. Even if that’s not her underneath the water, acting that out is incredibly difficult.”

In the end, what did we get from all of this? Eventually, we did see Owen give up his alias as a means to protect Ifeachor’s Lydia from any torture herself, which she did not approve of. From there, Owen seems ready and willing to bond with Alex, so we’ll see what happens.

If you want to get some other news on “Quantico,” head over here to read our review for tonight’s episode. (Photo: HBO.)