So Help Me Todd’s Skylar Astin Lobbied for That Dark Turn in Premiere: He’s ‘Looking For Murder, It’s Not Funny’

Spoiler alert: This interview discusses Thursday’s Season 2 premiere of So Help Me Todd. Haven’t watched yet? So help us Todd, we warned you.

There’s a moment in the second season premiere of So Help Me Todd that star Skylar Astin has been anticipating ever since CBS’ comedic procedural premiered last year. And he’s always known exactly how he wanted his character to react.

The long-awaited moment goes down when Todd discovers that Harry (Mark Moses) has returned from Iceland. In the middle of an otherwise delightful family dinner, Todd smashes a bottle on the table and threatens to shank his mother’s estranged second husband, with only his terrified family members preventing him from doing the unthinkable.

“I always knew that Harry was going to come back to some capacity, so I told [series creator] Scott Pendergast, ‘When he comes back, Todd is looking for murder, and it’s not funny.'” Astin tells TVLine. “There’s nothing funny about this. You’re seeing the cub protect his mama. This person hurt her, and he will have to be held back.”

Fortunately, Todd won’t need to seek legal counsel of his own, because “Scott wrote the scene in a clever way where we’re able to kind of forget that Todd almost did that,” Astin explains. “Thankfully he had his family to save him from a dangerous situation. I don’t know how I would have reacted, personally.”

Todd’s intense reaction “adds some wild stakes to an already action-packed scene,” he says. “That scene is seven pages and seven minutes long. It’s a full act of television. We go commercial-to-commercial, and it’s like a one-act play. Our director, Nancy Howard, had so much fun putting all the little pieces together.”

Other than almost murdering someone, Todd is pretty much on top of the world this season. For starters, he’s got some sweet new digs (spoiler alert: Astin tells TVLine that a future episode reveals the apartment to be a former shoe factory), where his newly divorced sister is now crashing on his $17 couch.

He even seems genuinely cool about Susan going through with her wedding to Peter, extending his best wishes with the gift of a gravy boat. Could he stop there? Sure. Should he? Absolutely. But does he? Oh, no. Todd decides to push this inherently uncomfortable exchange into full-on awkward territory by placing a delicate kiss on Susan’s forehead before shuffling out of the room. Despite Todd’s curious behavior, however, Astin doesn’t believe his character is still hung up on Susan.

“Something I always wanted to make sure of was that Todd wasn’t some sort of homewrecker,” Astin says. “There’s really nothing wrong with Peter, other than him being a great guy and devilishly good looking. Todd has respect for people in relationships. For right now, at least, that door is closed.”

Escaping romantic purgatory with Todd could actually be the best thing that ever happened to Susan, as it “allows [Inga Schlingmann’s] character to go in a bunch of different directions, not just how she relates to Todd. She has her own career aspirations, and it’s been really fun watching her pursue those. And when Todd and Susan are in scenes together, they’re able to actually just be friends.”

Astin is also excited about Todd’s new working dynamic with Margaret (Marcia Gay Harden), now that he’s double dipping as a licensed detective at the firm. “There’s a new level of respect” between them, he says, though he assures us that everything fans have previously loved about the duo will remain unchanged. “They’ll always bicker, and they’ll always feel that their way of going about things is the correct way. They’ll always have that natural banter that you do with your family.”

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