NEW YORK, July 23 (UPI) — Patriot and For All Mankind alum Michael Dorman says the murder mystery at the heart of Joe Pickett Season 2 gives his titular Wyoming game warden yet another way to bond with his beloved wife Marybeth.
The show is based on C.J. Box’s series of novels and new episodes air on Paramount+ Sundays.
Dorman plays the lead, a man trying to overcome a traumatic past, while butting heads with dangerous poachers and the local lawmen who want him to stay in his lane and out of their investigations.
The Resident actress Julianna Guill plays lawyer-turned-stay-at-home mom, Marybeth, and NYPD Blue icon Sharon Lawrence plays Marybeth’s outrageously selfish, gold-digging mother, Missy.
Season 2 of Joe Pickett picks up a year after the events of Season 1, with Joe and Marybeth still reeling from the death of their unborn son.
With their three tween daughters in school full-time, Marybeth starts taking clients again to distract herself from the loss of her baby, while Joe tracks down a serial killer picking off hunters.
The couple is surprised when their professional paths cross and they end up working on a case together.
“It’s something external from the trauma and it’s a tension release,” Dorman told UPI in a recent Zoom interview before the Screen Actors Guild went on strike earlier this month.
“The whodunnit element really serves as their reconnective tissue,” Guill agreed.
“That’s where they find common ground. It’s a saving grace — the device of needing to solve the mystery because, when they can’t connect on other elements, they can connect over this murder.”
The Picketts have also adopted young April (Vivienne Guynn), whose father was killed and mother took off in the show’s first season.
“We’re navigating a brand-new family dynamic on the heels of extreme grief,” Guill said.
With all those people under one small roof, the family is both close-knit and chaotic.
First and foremost, April is bonding with Joe and Marybeth’s natural daughters Sheridan (Skywalker Hughes) and Lucy (Kamryn Pilva).
“It takes them a minute to accept each other and then to be accepted,” Dorman said.
Missy also returns to the fold after another romance has soured.
“There’s one downstairs bathroom,” Guill quipped. “Tension is high.”
Dorman added, “When Missy comes in, it’s kind of ‘Missyland,’ which is wonderful to watch as a viewer and watching Sharon weave her magic is an absolute hoot.”
Joe and Marybeth’s shared grief strengthens their marriage, although they process their pain in different ways.
“These two go way back. … Joe’s home environment as a child was extremely volatile and dangerous. It was very dark,” Guill said.
“Marybeth’s wasn’t necessarily dangerous and it didn’t have the same elements, but she yearned for stability,” the actress added. “So, they’ve spent their young adult lives searching for an anchor and they’ve found that in each other.”
Dorman calls Joe someone who is happy to “let sleeping dogs lie” instead of confronting his trauma, so he can heal and move forward.
“We’ll just carry on and that is what it takes to get through life,” the actor said of his character.
“But we all know that that’s blindness and he needs to crack open that shell. But, without Marybeth, he just wouldn’t get there,” Dorman added. “There’s a lot of truth in it, so it becomes meaningful. There are a lot of people that feel a lot of pain, that feel alone, that feel misunderstood.”
Throughout the season, Marybeth also ends up trying to assist Charlie Left Hand (Sean Wei Mah), a Native American man whose adult daughter is missing.
“There is this immediate connection between two souls in pain,” Guill said.
“In the beginning of the story line, Marybeth finds she’s a little misguided in her intentions. She very much wanted to help, but realizes she was using her desire to fix a situation as a cover for the healing and the grieving that she was experiencing herself.”
Ultimately, Marybeth uses her skills and resources to put Charlie before herself.
“She would do anything to get her child back and she knows if there is even an inkling of hope, she wants to be there for Charlie,” Guill said. “It’s a very delicate topic and a horror that Charlie is experiencing.”
Working through this story line was an educational experience for the actors as they learned about how many Indigenous girls and women go missing or die violently in the real world.
“I’m very glad that our writer’s room decided to take this on,” Guill said. “It is very exciting and gratifying to explore story lines that have meaning and value in our society.”
