NEW YORK, Feb. 27 (UPI) — Ugly Betty, Covert Affairs and The Lincoln Lawyer alum Christopher Gorham says he wasn’t as shocked as viewers were when his Sheriff Country character Travis Fraley was shot during an attack on the local police station.
“Thankfully, they told me way ahead of time,” Gorham, 51, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“[Series co-creator] Tony Phelan sat me down when we were shooting my first episode and he gave me a heads up as to what was coming. So, it was not a surprise. We were all really on pins and needles, waiting to read the next couple of episodes to see how it all plays out.”
The contemporary, northern California-set drama returns to CBS and Paramount+ Friday after the mid-season cliff-hanger aired in December.
The Fire Country spin-off follows Travis and his ex-wife, Sheriff Mickey Fox (Morena Baccarin), who seemed to be rekindling their romance before a bullet left Travis critically wounded in Season 1, Episode 9.
Asked if Travis got shot by happenstance or because members of a well-armed militia resented how he and Mickey helped a member of their clan escape the family compound, Gorham replied: “Wrong place, wrong time.
“I think he should have listened to Cassidy [Michele Weaver] when she was telling him to get back, instead of trying to be the ‘White Man Savior,’ [saying]: ‘I’ve got this. Let’s all cool down,'” he added.
“It’s a good cliffhanger. The emotional stakes are so high because those relationships are deep and complicated.”
That’s an understatement.
Travis briefly dated Cassidy, Mickey’s deputy, after he and Mickey divorced, but they broke up, sending him back into Mickey’s arms.
Spoilers ahead.
“It’s one of the things that I love about these few episodes when we get back. You get to see all of these characters, that now you’ve grown to know love, go through something incredibly traumatic and difficult and what I’m so proud of is we don’t just move on to the next episode,” Gorham said.
“All of these characters, in their way, have to deal with the trauma that they experience and it changes them.”
Episode 10 shows Travis literally fighting for his life.
“The consequence of that is that he has to really think about: ‘OK, well, I have a second chance at this. Do I want to do it any differently?'” Gorham said.
There are a lot of reasons why Travis thinks he and Mickey — the mother of his teenage daughter Skye (Amanda Arcuri) — can work out their problems, according to the actor.
“These two clearly love each other. I think they always will, regardless of their relationship status,” he said.
“They’ve just shared too much of their lives together for them to not be tied together in some way. So, I think there’s that and I think we get a chance to see them together and to see that they’re kind of great together.”
Travis and Mickey were small-town, high-school sweethearts married 20 years before splitting up.
Mickey went into law-enforcement, partly to rebel against her father Wes (W. Earl Brown), an illegal marijuana grower, while Travis became an attorney, who practices all kinds of law because there isn’t much competition nearby.
“He has evolved into kind of a ‘jack of all trades,'” Gorham said.
“He’s been in the public defender’s office. He’s gone out on his own,” he added. “He’s also done some prosecutions. He does land stuff. He helped [pot] growers go legal. He is like a general practitioner would be.”
He also does a lot of pro bono work as he is compassionate and generous and frequently represents neighbors who can’t pay his normal rates.
“Thank goodness his family is so well of,” Gorham quipped.
“His heart lies in defense. I think he likes sticking up for the underdog. I think he’s suspicious of power and the corruption that comes with it and it’s kind of been his life. He’s kind of been standing up to bullies, including his family, when he and Mickey were first together.”
Along with their unmistakable chemistry, Travis and Mickey are decent people who share similar perspectives on justice and try to do what is best for their community.
“They’re almost always on opposite ends of that courtroom, which is one of the things that I love about the show, the way they’ve set up these characters,” Gorham said.
“You have Mickey at the center of everything and it’s her story and the two men that she’s closest to in her family are both oppositional to her work.”
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