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Yet as we soon learn, we only knew part of the story.
The officer then pulled a gun on him.
Credit: Warner Bros./OWN
Its one of the most potent, immediate, and unflinching examples of TV tackling police brutality to date.
This also kicks Charleys character arc into gear.
Gardner revisited the police brutality story line in an extensive interview with EW.
Anne Marie Fox/Own
And she channeled that difficulty into her performance.
I remember when the show premiered season 2, Philando Castiles verdict had just come in the week before.
I didnt realize how little time Id given myself to process it until I saw the show.
Thats when the gratitude really hit, is when I saw what we were doing.
But I thought that early on.
In its way, it expedited that journey.
She began to unpack certain things I dont know if she would have looked at it as deeply.
She wasnt listening, necessarily, to what her son needed in those moments.
I just felt like it was an important conversation that was around history, but also around this moment.
I just love that conversation.
This is one of the final pieces out of the box.
She is now here and confronting what that means at this time in her life.
There was something so intimate about that moment.
It was just full of emotional violence and the threat of violence, and terror.
The intimacy of that, and how much fear and just how scary that really must have been.
One of my favorite things aboutQueen Sugaris the way it balances authentic, intimate storytelling with sharp political messaging.
I asked her about what it is to raise a teenage boy, because I have an older brother.
And one thing she did say is she didnt talk to me a lot about race growing up.
But she did talk to my brother specifically about the police.
Theres a human reality to this topic.
Like, What have we done?
There isnt any comfort in it.
Its an on-the-ground reality right now.Its the reality of the environment, its the reality of the country.
It felt like part of what we were doing was restoring a human face and heart to those realities.
That pain is felt not just by the family; its felt community-wide.
Being able to honor that was important.
Nicholas L. Ashe is shouldering that intense material.
What was it like working through it with him?None of us knew what had happened except him.
I remember that first episode, and I remember looking at his face.
We were all just getting back into the world of it; we were shooting the seasons first episode.
I wish that I could relieve him.
Nic and I are very, very close and its now a habitual response to want to mom him.
And I didnt know that he knew.
He was just walking with it.
So Nicholas knew the full scope of the story line while you did not?Yes.
Their innocence is gone.
And then waking up to that.
I realized this show is serving a very critical purpose.
That was a gut punch.
I didnt know that something more than what Id assumed had happened had happened.
I just didnt know.
I remember feeling, again, just like, Oh my gosh.
Nic has been walking with this.
And then just feeling so much grief for Charleys journey and her life.
In her way, before everything that happens in season 1, shes already missing him.
She has created a very busy life and a very exceptional and achievement-based life.
A lot of her identity is wrapped up in that.
I think in some ways shes missing Micah.
Shes not paying the kind of attention that she should.
And would not have woken up to that had everything not happened in season 1.
But as everything happens in season 1, it takes over.
She doesnt fully wake up to him.
But its a very rash and painful wake-up.
It was just painful.
It was a gut punch.
Wanting to take it on yourself and knowing you cant.
And that your child wont ever be the same child.
Hes no longer a child and he will not ever be the same human that youve been raising.
Its such heavy material.
How important was that levity as you were working through these scenes and this material?Huge.
Its because Micah says, I cant.
I need to move past this.
I cant live in that.
Its really hard to imagine that Charley Bordelon-West would let that go, you know?
Its hard to imagine that she would in any way not absolutely burn that department to the ground.
That was tricky to play.
You want to affect.
We are also whole and we are also full of love and full of joy.
Because of that, we are able to heal.
That is what Ive known in my life, growing up in the neighborhood that Ive grown up in.
I think it actually was an important sequence.
Thats what life feels like.
Even when we hear about these events, were in the middle of our lives.
But we still have to process it.
Were trying to be present to everything happening and then finding time to process it and feel it.
It is true pain.
Its so immediate because you understand the common factor is blackness.
Video clip courtesy of Warner Horizon Scripted Television.Watch the entire season 2 ofQueen Sugaron the OWN app.
