https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjSNuC2PggY
Last week, we fell in love with Trial & Error and tonight it is back with 2 all new episodes on NBC at 9p. Did you miss out on this mockumentary about a man who is accused of killing his wife in the small town of East Peck, then you missed the best new comedy of the season. The residents of the small Southern Town and one Yankee attorney are all involved in ever aspect of his trial and the multiple errors that go along with proving Larry Henderson innocence. Get why it is called Trial & Error now?
What makes this witty comedy so smart, besides the writing, is the cast of charterers that live in this small quiet town that just got noisier. Recently at the NBC’s TCA Winter Press Day, the actors from the show talked about the important roles they play to
First there is Larry Henderson, who is accused of killing his wife. Even though you want him to be innocent, every few minutes we get new evidence that makes it seem like he is guilty. Here’s how John Lithgow described Henderson.
My character, I loved the challenge of playing a part who, at any given moment, is completely could completely plausibly have committed or not committed this crime. This seemed to me a wonderful kind of magic trick to pull off, and I love challenges like that. They created a character for which this trick can work. He’s completely driven by his ID. It’s completely unedited. He has no sense of priority or proportion. The tiniest things have absolutely as much importance to him as the crime of murder, and you see it in the very first moment of the series in that 911 call. The cable guy and the death of his wife are equally are equal emergencies. This is the stuff of just fantastic comedy, very much like Dick Solomon in 3rd Rock from the Sun. He was driven by his ID too, and yet they are very, very different characters.
Next up is Anne Flatch, she helps to run the temporary office where Northerner Josh Segal (Nick D’Agosto) has set up shop to prove Henderson’s innocence. She has multiple disorders. Just when you think they have run out of things to give her, they come up with another one. Sherri Shepherd talked about all the ailments they gave her.
She’s lovable, but she has all of these disorders. She has prosopagnosia, which is facial blindness. She’s born with no tear ducts. She’s dyslexic. She has alien hand syndrome. She sleeps, and she talks when she’s sleeping, and she walks backwards. She talks like Adele when she has a flu shot. I mean, she has Scindo syndrome. She faints when she sees beautiful artwork.
And there are even more than just that.
With all of those disorders, she needs some help in the office/taxidermy shop. She gets that from Dwayne Reed. He is former cop in East Peck, who could not handle the job. He is a bumbling idiot, but sometimes he gets things right. Granted to be accused of another murder puts a wrench in things. Steven Boyer gave some insight into his Dwayne Reed.
Well, I think that we’ve all known the person who is sort of misunderstood, who might be a little smarter than he appears at first. I mean, I like to think that Dwayne is the brains behind the operation in spite of all of his foibles. But, yeah, I knew guys like that growing up. I mean, it’s hard not to. I kind of lived in between the city and the corn fields, and so, you know, you drive five minutes outside the suburbs, and it’s all farm in Ohio. So I knew Dwaynes growing up, guys who had never left their small plot of land. And, yeah, I think Dwayne has a brilliance that people have yet to really notice. So maybe this case will bring it out of him.
While he might not the brightest, opposing counsel Carol Anne Keane is very smart and determined to prove Henderson guilty. Jayma Mays talked about playing a character much different than the one she played on Glee.
I’m tough as nails and sexually aggressive, pushing for the death penalty. No. Yeah, she’s really good at her job, and her main goal in this, she wants to be DA of this small Southern town in East Peck, and she’s going to do whatever she can to get Larry Henderson to fry by the end of this show. Yeah, I think she’s competent and refined.
Finally, there is Summer, who is Larry’s daughter. Maybe because she is adopted, she doesn’t really seem like someone who is from East Peck. How does Krysta Rodriguez see her character that is a real smash.
Summer is lovely. She’s so fiercely devoted to her dad. And I love that I got to have such a clear objective. He is, in my mind, completely innocent. There could not be a world in which he did this. And to be able to crusade for somebody, especially somebody as lovable as John and his character, Larry, to just kind of feel like I get to be his advocate and fight for him and our family. In this script, he adopted me when I was young and I think that bond carries somebody for a long time when you feel maybe not wanted and you become wanted by somebody. And we take on the world. Now it’s just he and I and the dog. And it’s been a great experience to get to kind of really fight for somebody, really believe in somebody. And then the things take crazy turns and being sort of tossed to and fro in the middle of this, this something that you would never imagine would happen in your life, and now you’re having to navigate it, and absurdity becomes your normal life and what that means for them in the family and for her being in this town. She’s a transplant in the town as well and the town is such a backwards place in some ways. And so it’s been it’s fun. It’s fun navigating all that.
