You probably didn’t need the NCIS: Sydney Season 3 two-episode finale, ‘Hunter’ and ‘Killer’, to love Michelle Mackey (Olivia Swann). She’s been at the center of what makes the show work from the beginning. But there’s no doubt that Season 3 took us deeper into who this character is, and also expanded our understanding of her relationship with her partner, JD.
What does that mean for Mackey? And is this ship ready to sail? We talked to Olivia Swann about the Season 3 finale, why Mackey sometimes calls JD “Jim,” and that charged moment at the end of ‘Killer.’
First things first, there’s quite a cliffhanger at the end of Episode 19 ‘Hunter’. The TV scheduling gods made it so we didn’t have to wait, but Swann and I immediately discussed the fact that it would have been a pretty cruel cliffhanger. “When I watched 19, I was instantly like, I have to watch 20 right now. So, in a way, I’m kind of glad because everyone can just kind of binge it and just get it done.”
The two episodes give us a lot for Mackey, particularly in her relationships with both JD and DeShawn. For Swann, they represent two very different things. “I think DeShawn really does represent her past. And you know, obviously, they went through so many things together that we saw in episode 15. There’s that history there and a very, very fierce bond.”
“DeShawn will fight for his boss. He will protect his boss. And she has this kind of trust with him that’s very much a given, almost because they have that history, which I really like. And there’s a solidity to their relationship and their kind of platonic friendship.”
We also get a moment of Mackey basically giving up on saving Ryan because DeShawn needs her. And according to Swann, that moment was just so obvious it didn’t feel big. “In that scene, it’s just so heightened and like, obviously, she desperately wants to save her son’s dad. But her teammate is in peril. And as we know, in her past, she failed to save her crew. So that I think will always be intrinsically in her as a Marine to like, no one’s left behind kind of thing.”
JD is another matter, emotionally at least. “Whereas with JD, I feel like he represents a little more of her present and her future. And there’s a really wonderful…. we’ve seen their trust grow. We’ve seen their playfulness. We’ve seen their ease with one another. We’ve seen that they do butt heads still; they still hold each other accountable for their decisions. And we see affection between them. You know, there are so many facets to their, I mean, love, I guess. There’s so many, for all definitions of the word.”
Big words. “I think they encapsulate all of them,” Swann added. “And it’s been really fun kind of working with Todd [Lasance] and exploring kind of Mackey and JD through Season 3, and finding these beautiful moments of connection and lightness and safety between the two of them.”
A lot of setup goes into making a ship memorable. And one very important part is the slow part of the slow-burn. But at the end of the finale, ‘Killer’, Mackey and JD have a clear moment, one that they both seem to recognize and get a little flustered by.
“It’s that thing of like, life interrupts the most beautiful connected moment. And I think that’s also so great because they have it, and then it’s broken, which I think is obviously so frustrating if you really want these two people to have more of that. But I think it’s a wonderful, beautiful, special moment for them, especially after everything they’ve been through this season. And it’s just so short and sweet, but intimate and lovely. And I liked that we’ve not really seen that from them before.”
The trust, however, has been there from the beginning. In fact, there’s a fun moment in the episode when Mackey talks about how, if they’re going to do something stupid, now’s the time. And you never expect JD to say no. That’s their dynamic.
“I think that’s such a wonderful thing about them, that they will always have each other’s backs. They might question; they might double-check. They might be like, hang on. Are you sure? But there’s no doubt in Mackey or JD’s mind that they’re not going to be there for each other.”
And when they have those really emotional moments, there’s one particular thing we’ve noticed: Mackey switching from calling her partner JD to calling him Jim. So, of course, we had to ask Swann about the switch and what it means.
“It’s never been explicitly said to me from the writers or anything, but obviously, I noticed it in the script. And I think my choice for that it’s in slightly more emotionally charged moments. It’s this way for her to kind of connect with him on a different level that only they connect on. She doesn’t really do it with the other team members. She does it with him. And I don’t think she’s conscious of it. It’s a subconscious thing where she thinks this is a Jim moment, because she cares for him. She has this depth with him. So, it’s very unconscious for her.”
Her relationship with JD is, of course, not the only big thing about the last two episodes. We also get to see a lot more of Mackey’s son, Trey. And surprisingly, we get to meet Trey’s father, Ryan. And of course, it’s one thing to know Mackey is a mother and another thing to see her be a mother.
“That’s something that I really wanted to make sure felt real and felt grounded. Especially, you know, he’s 18 years old now, he’s not a baby. So, there’s a very different level of mothering a teenage son.”
Some would say it’s harder. And it’s got its own particular challenges.
“And it’s also interesting that we see her as a mother, but not off duty. She’s very much in work mode, being a mom and dealing with a very stressful, scary situation with her son. So, I don’t think we’ve seen her just be like mom Michelle, you know?”
Sure, at first, Mackey can’t be a mom because she’s working, but later, after Ryan gets kidnapped, it’s in everyone’s best interest that she isn’t just Mom Michelle.
“All that kind of craziness, I think, adds to us seeing what it’s like for her to be a mom. You know, she kind of always has to put work first. And that’s the whole, or one of the big points of these two episodes. That no matter how much she cares for her son and, you know, has so much love for him, he’s a child, but work will always in some way get in the way.”
Mackey goes out and saves the day; of course, she does. It’s what we expect of her. But in Season 3, we’ve also gotten to see behind the mask, and that part is something Swann has particularly enjoyed. “It’s so fun. And it’s even more fun to have those moments of seeing through the armor, seeing the cracks, seeing the emotion, because I think it makes her strength even stronger. We know she’s a badass. We know she’s always going to jump out of a plane. We know she’s always going to do the crazy plan. But what we don’t know is how she’s going to act and behave when her son is in danger.”
“It’s those things that I think really solidify the Mackie that we’ve known for the last two, three seasons, and just create more depth. And we care for her more, which I really like. And I certainly do. The more I learn about her, the more I get to play with how she feels about different things, all the different emotions. I think it just creates such a more well-rounded human being, which is always amazing.”
The kind of badass who would leave her phone on that plane to make sure she has a way to track it. Point Mackey.
Swann has embodied this character for three full seasons now, and at some point, some parts of the actor bleed into the character. Or do they? “Definitely in the softer moments of Mackie, I feel a little bit more myself. Liv is not in any way good at conflict or yelling at people or giving orders, or being direct at all. So that is very much Mackey. But in the softer moments with JD and with Trey and the slightly lighter moments, it’s a lot easier for me to kind of bring more of myself and my connections with people to those scenes, which is really nice.”
What comes next? Season 3 tied up a lot of loose ends, and in a way, Season 4 feels like a blank slate for the character and the relationships she’s built. But Swann is clear about what she wants to see. “For me, it’s always about character connections and character relationships. And that is something that will be focused on in Season 4, even more so than we’ve seen in Season 3.”
“That, for me, is the most exciting part of kind of the blank slate of it all. We can kind of start wherever, which is awesome. And we really are starting with characters and how they keep building their relationships.”
We can’t wait.
NCIS: Sydney aired Tuesdays at 10/9c on CBS. It will return to CBS in midseason.
