TRANSPLANT Post-Mortem: Joseph Kay on Theo’s Post-Crash Changes, the Bash-Mags Relationship Shift

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season 3 premiere of TRANSPLANT.]

In the season 3 premiere of TRANSPLANT, Theo (Jim Watson) is back to work…but he’s still struggling in the aftermath of his life-changing accident.

“We wrote that helicopter crash because a lot of the characters in TRANSPLANT are dealing with trauma in one way or another,” TRANSPLANT creator Joseph Kay tells Give Me My Remote in the video below. “We…wanted Theo to experience trauma in real-time. Bash is dealing with trauma, but it’s things that happened to him in the past and that he’s processing now. And we were interested in the contrast of something that literally just happened, and how it might affect him.”

“The story that we’ve always been circling with Theo is he’s a person who loses sight of himself,” he continues. “And his arc over the series is to regain sight. And so at about the halfway point of what we thought our series would be, it’s the sort of rock bottom moment for Theo—this crash happens and it really destabilizes him. And we wanted to be with him, real-time, as he was in that heightened state that follows trauma: where you’re agitated and…you’re back in the world and you’re back in your body, but you’re not quite behaving in a way that you yourself can even perceive.”

And the show won’t be just glossing over the messy parts of Theo’s emotional recovery. “We wanted to be with him through his decision making and through the impact of that as it happened, and then to let him kind of come down, closer to the middle of the season, and see him react to it,” Kay says. “Tracking the ways in which he changes and he’s changing. It continued an ongoing conversation about trauma which we have frequently in our writers’ room and allowed us to explore it from a different perspective.”

Considerably less traumatic was a long-awaited reveal: Bash (Hamza Haq) and Mags (Laurence Leboeuf) have officially coupled up.

“We’re so excited to do that, to be honest,” Kay says. “The two actors have great chemistry; they did from the second they were on-screen together. And they made it so easy to write to stolen glances. I mean, those two with their chemistry and the subtle nuanced nature of their performances, we could have done that for years. But I think we’ve all seen that a lot.”

Though the duo is now together, it won’t be smooth sailing—because that’s not who these characters are. “The reason that their almost-wordless chemistry is good is because they have an inherent friction,” Kay says. “And so we realized as we started to write to them as a couple, that they clash in interesting, sexy ways. They come up against each other a lot. They’re arguing; they take different sides of the same issue, whether it’s as doctors or as human beings. They approach things emotionally very differently. She’s an unbelievably open person, and he is an unbelievably guarded person. And Bash is convinced nothing’s ever going to work out well for him in life. And she’s kind of not that way—she’s very present tense.”

“So whether it’s work or personal or anything, they fight in a fun way,” he continues. “And they have this chemistry that we love exploring and we just love the idea of like, let’s just get into it. Rather than a one-night stand, or rather than continue [the] will they/won’t they, let’s just let these two come together and explore these two very different people who have great chemistry as a couple in real-time and see where it goes. And it’s the big great romance at the center of our show.”

TRANSPLANT, Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC

RELATED:

• TRANSPLANT: What You Need to Know About the Season Premiere
• TRANSPLANT Creator Joseph Kay Previews Season 3’s New Boss, Bash’s Big Decisions, and More
• TRANSPLANT Season 3 Premiere Exclusive Clip: The Team Welcomes Back Theo—And Shares What He’s Missed
• TRANSPLANT to End with Season 4
• TRANSPLANT Post-Mortem: Hamza Haq on the Hospital Shakeup and Bash and Mags’ ‘Vulnerable,’ ‘Emotional’ Moment
• TRANSPLANT Exclusive Clip: June Takes a Stand
• TRANSPLANT Exclusive Clip: Mags Bonds With a Sick Baby
• TRANSPLANT Exclusive Clip: Bishop, Bash, and Mags Gear Up for a Legal Fight
• TRANSPLANT Exclusive Clip: Bash Tries to Work Out His Trauma in Therapy
• TRANSPLANT Stars Hamza Haq and John Hannah Preview Bash and Bishop’s Dueling Conflicts
• NBC Sets March Return for TRANSPLANT, WEAKEST LINK
• NBC Picks Up More TRANSPLANT
• TRANSPLANT Exclusive Clip: Can Bash Help His Friend Avoid Surgery?
• TRANSPLANT: ‘Far From Home’ Photos
• TRANSPLANT: ‘Trigger Warning’ Photos
• TRANSPLANT: ‘Eid’ Photos
• TRANSPLANT Exclusive Clip: Bash Has a Heartbreaking Theory About a New Patient
• TRANSPLANT: ‘Saleh’ Photos
• TRANSPLANT: ‘Your Secrets Can Kill You’ Photos
• TRANSPLANT Series Premiere Photos
• NBC Sets September Launch for New Medical Drama TRANSPLANT

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