[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Watson Season 1 Episode 9 “Take a Family History.”]
Everything you ever wanted to know about Watson’s (Morris Chestnut) neurologist, Ingrid (Eve Harlow), is revealed in the latest episode.
Watson had already teased that Ingrid has a dark secret that now Moriarty (Randall Park) knows about. But could you have guessed just how dark it actually is? “Take a Family History” reveals just that with flashbacks that go back to what put her sister in a wheelchair. Read below for insight from Harlow and Rochelle Aytes, whose Mary has a much longer history with Ingrid than even she knew.
Ingrid killed her father?!
Back in 2009 on New Year’s Eve, a young Ingrid (nickname Didi) comes into the hospital with her sister, who fell through a railing two floors up, and her father, who has abused them in the past — and pushed Gigi. In the final moments of the episode, the flashbacks take teen Ingrid to the same spot where as an adult she sat alone on her birthday and Moriarty then met her. That’s the spot where Ingrid uses the fentanyl she took a little bit at a time from her sister’s IV on her father — and pushes him into his grave. Yes, teen Ingrid kills her own father!
Colin Bentley/CBS
Harlow tells TV Insider she knew about that backstory since she got the role of Ingrid, after a meeting with showrunner Craig Sweeny and executive producer/director Larry Teng. At the time, they weren’t sure when it would be revealed on the show.
“They were like, ‘We have to tell you this because we feel it’s going to be really unfair if we get to the end of the season and all of a sudden this big twist comes along, but you killed your dad.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, what? Hold up,” she says. “That was pretty important because I think something like that is a pretty big part of my identity. Pretty early on, I have this sister and the spinal signal project and all of that is so important to me. So I think it was important to know why it’s so significant.”
Mary flashbacks!
As a teen, Ingrid is pointed in Mary’s direction; she’s more willing to take risks than the doctor treating Gigi. And so with that, we get a significant look at a younger Mary and what she was like before she was in charge.
“That was a lot of fun,” shares Aytes. “First of all, you start with the hair and they had me in a curly hair ponytail, so that already gave me youthful and a different energy. And then the sets helped so much. It was New Year’s Eve; it was really cool to be on that set. And also just what was written, it’s like Mary was always smart and strong and talented at what she did. She always had that, but she didn’t have the power that she has in the present that she has now. And so it was very interesting to play against that.”
Mary was willing to do a surgery that could have meant Gigi would walk again — until her boss, the doctor in charge of her care, intervened. If Mary had fought back and done the surgery anyway, it would have essentially meant the end of her career as she knew it.
Ingrid’s lies exposed — and the consequences
Ingrid’s lies are exposed when her sister needs to go to the hospital, but doing so reveals what the doctor has done to get her into her spinal signal program (hide their familial connection and conceal medications she was using to treat her). Mary is surprised to learn that the neurologist is the teen she once encountered and whose sister she wished she could help, but even though she may feel guilty about that, she still has to act as medical director. That means that while she doesn’t remove Gigi from the program, she does give Ingrid two months to find another job or she’s fired for her actions. And she means that, says Aytes.
“What Ingrid did crossed the line completely. She was ready to get her out of the building at that second. In her mind, there is nothing that can keep her there,” she explains, pointing out Ingrid’s former colleague warned her that she’s dangerous. “She doesn’t want that in her hospital. I think there’s a part of Mary that knows Ingrid’s a talented doctor and there’s a soft spot in her heart because of what happened in the past with her sister. But she crossed the line and that’s why she’s giving her two months, to be quite honest with you. She could have just said right now it’s done, but she’s giving her some time because she does know that she tried to do what she thought was best for her sister.” That’s where Mary’s guilt comes into play as well.
Right now, Mary can’t imagine anything that will change her mind, but Aytes teases, “There’s a lot that is going to happen in the forthcoming months that’s going to question [that] decision.”
Sergei Bachlakov / CBS
Both Harlow and Aytes rave about the Ingrid and Mary scenes in this episode, calling them their favorite ones to film this season.
“I love everybody on the cast. I am so grateful for all everything that I’ve been given. Those were my favorite days on set,” Harlow tells us. Usually when filming, there are shorter cuts for new set-ups. “We were allowed to go through the entire scene, and Rochelle as just so present as a scene partner. Sometimes you’re working with actors and understand, these kind of emotional scenes are very difficult, they don’t want to give their everything, and so you kind of pull back a little bit. Not with Rochelle. The camera’s on me, she’s giving me everything.”
Adds Aytes, “We played off of each other. Eve is such a strong actress, she is so emotional. She’s got her heart on her sleeve and the energy in that room when we were going at it was just special. I was getting goosebumps and it was exhausting. It was two days of filming a couple of particular scenes with Eve. and boy, it was like a workout, but it was so fulfilling and I loved it.”
Harlow also reveals the lengths she went to at one point. “The camera was on her and the desk was in the way, so they were like, ‘Eve, just stand behind the camera.’ I’m like, no, man, I’m climbing on top of the desk. I’m contorting myself so that Rochelle can look me in the eye. And she was like, thank you.” (They did eventually move the desk.)
Aytes laughs recalling Harlow doing that. “It was an emotional moment, and at first they wanted me to look at an X, and I’m like, oh my God, really? Because you’ve done it 20 times already. So it can be challenging to keep that energy and that emotion up is so challenging. But she was always there for me.”
Harlow echoes that, explaining, “We both felt that the scenes were important, that this connection was important. She was just a wonderful actor to play opposite of and play within. It’s like every single time it was slightly different. So it stayed so alive.”
Near the end of the episode, Ingrid then asks Watson if he wants her gone, but he says it’s not his call. He knew not to trust her and understands why she did what she did, but he’s not standing in the way of her facing consequences. It is Watson, not Mary, whose mind she does want to change.
“Ingrid doesn’t respect a lot of people because she thinks she’s smarter than everybody. I think that she does really respect Watson and I think that she wants to be validated by him and she wants him to say, “What you did is awful, but I still want you around.’ She’s kind of seeking that validation as she wants to be seen by him as a peer,” Harlow says. “That’s important. I think that she cares about Watson in a way that she doesn’t care for a lot of people. She’s a psychopath. She doesn’t care for other people, she doesn’t care about what other people think of her, of what she does. But she does care for Watson because of this respect for the way that he walks through the world, the way he sees the world. He’s inspiring to her, and I think a rejection by him is really hurtful.”
That reminds us of Sweeny telling us at the beginning of the season that Watson looks at Ingrid and sees her as someone that could either become his late friend, the sleuth Sherlock Holmes, or the villain Moriarty.
“It’s like, if you accept me, then I will go down the path, the light, and now you’re rejecting me, so you’ve left me with no alternative but the dark,” says Harlow.
Mary and Watson’s Valentine’s Day interrupted
As we learn in this episode, Mary’s relationship with the executive vice president of human resources is over because the other woman cheated on her. We don’t really hear how she feels about that.
“There’s the part of me that knows there was nothing written particularly for these two. So coming up with my own thoughts and imagining what it was like, I imagine that they had something and that she had strong feelings for her. I imagine that it hurt when she cheated,” says Aytes.
Mary did have dinner reservations already (for Valentine’s Day!), and so she invites her ex-husband Watson along. “Mary just needs a familiar face. She needs a friend in this moment, and in that moment, it’s obviously Watson,” according to Aytes.
It’s while out for the night that they start talking about the miscarriage he only recently learned that she had when he went away with Sherlock Holmes. They’re interrupted by a call from Ingrid about her sister, and their conversation won’t continue in the near future — they’ll keep getting sidetracked. “It’s almost like life or death is happening, so there’s no time for that talk,” Aytes teases.
Now that they’re being honest with each other and Mary is single again, could they have a future together? The star isn’t sure.
“In the minds of the writers, I don’t know where they want to go. In my mind as Mary, I feel like it’s not the right time and she’s okay with that,” she says. Right now, Mary needs a friend but, “Season 7, let’s get back to me. I think that at the end of the day, these two should and will be together though.”
Ingrid vs. Moriarty
We now know whose finger that is that Moriarty showed Ingrid. Right now, however, she knows little about him other than he’s someone who knows her secret — and that’s not something she expected.
Sergei Bachlakov / CBS
“It really destroys her equilibrium in the way that she sees the world because she walks through life knowing that — knowing, look at me, I’m humble. No, but just thinking that she is smarter and several steps ahead of everybody else because she is, she constantly is,” Harlow points out. “She thinks faster, and she also behaves in a way that doesn’t take other people’s feelings or lives into consideration, which is why she’s able to get further ahead.”
She continues, “I think the thing that makes Moriarty so terrifying, it’s not even that he’s found out her secret, it’s that he’s so far ahead of her and she doesn’t know how. Literally nobody has done this to her. And so that’s where the fear comes from: How does he know all of this information? How did he find out? It shakes the way that she has been living. If he knows this, what else does he know? What else can he do? Ingrid does not like not knowing. Ingrid does not like being out of control, and Moriarty shakes her world.”
Because of that, she hasn’t even started to come up with a plan for what to do since it’s a first for her. “How do you go about dealing with a person like that?” Harlow asks. “He’s giving her so little information, she doesn’t know where to go to, who to turn to. I think that’s why there’s in this person that’s usually not very emotional and has their s**t together, all of a sudden all these emotions are being shaken out because it’s pure panic.”
What did you think of Ingrid’s backstory? What do you think Moriarty is going to want from her? Let us know in the comments section below.
Watson, Sundays, 9/8c, CBS
