The Irrational Showrunner Teases "Consequences" For Alec In Season 2 & Addresses Phoebe And Rizwan's Relationship

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Blended image of Alec in a gold circle and Rizwan and Phoebe in The Irrational season 2 Custom Image by Ana Nieves

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Irrational season 2, episode 7.

After taking a brief hiatus for the holidays, The Irrational returns to NBC on Tuesday, January 7 at 10 p.m. ET. Season 2, episode 8 is titled "Lost Souls," and will see Alec battling the clock. The official synopsis states, "When an acclaimed tennis player goes missing in a remote forest, Alec is called to help find her and bring her to safety; however, a medical emergency threatens to sideline Alec, leaving Marisa and Rose to race against time and rescue the woman."

In the fall finale, a K-Pop star seeked help from Rose after finding a superfan dead in the aftermath of her show. Yunni became the prime suspect in the murder case, and Alec teamed up with his girlfriend to help prove her innocence. Showrunner Arika Lisanne Mittman shares that she wanted to make sure that the story remained authentic, while also playing into the broad idea of fan culture. All ends well when the episode comes to a close, but Mittman teases that there's plenty of conflict for Alec on the horizon.

A composite image of Alec looking concerned in front of Alec pointing to something offscreen while Kylie looks on in The Irrational

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ScreenRant interviews Mittman about the inspiration behind The Irrational season 2's fall finale, Alec's major life decision, and the nature of Phoebe and Rizwan's relationship.

"It's, of course, a very common irrational behavior—that relationship we feel to the stars, to the celebrities and musicians that we're fans of."

Keong Sim as Jeon Ji-Ho, Kristin Leigh as Yoonie, and Scott Seol as Sung B in The Irrational season 2, episode 7

The case in Episode 7 surrounds, not just fan culture, but also how artists are treated by record labels. What inspired that storyline?

Arika Lisanne Mittman: Kirk Moore, who was the writer of that episode, brought me the idea of writing a story set in the K-Pop world, and I said, "Great, only if we can do this with some amount of authenticity." And fortunately, our writer's PA is Korean American and so I said, "You have to be in the room the whole time for breaking this story because we want to make sure we're doing this correct culturally."

He was definitely a big part of it as well. The specifics of K-Pop were really interesting to us because there definitely are specific rules to that world, but also, we felt like it applied to the broader world of fandoms and fan interactions and parasocial relationships and all of that was a really interesting topic that we hadn't yet delved into on The Irrational.

And yet, it's, of course, a very common irrational behavior—that relationship we feel to the stars, to the celebrities and musicians that we're fans of. And so I was very interested in telling a story both specifically about the world of K-Pop and that would resonate more broadly within the world of fandom.

Does Alec's understanding of human behavior make things easier or harder in his romantic relationships?

Arika Lisanne Mittman: Oh my gosh, it does both, right? Jesse plays the role with so much empathy, and I think understanding so much about human behavior and psychology allows one to be very empathetic and understanding, but it's a blessing and a curse.

And there'll definitely be an episode coming up where Alec's ability to understand human nature and behavior and his analysis of human behavior does not necessarily sit so well with Rose during the course of an episode. That will definitely come up—how much to push that and how much to just let things happen.

The Irrational Season 2, Episode 9 Will See Alec Face The Consequences Of His Reckless Behavior

"He's always going to put the case first and put other people first, which is going to lead him into perilous situations."

Professor Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) leaning on a chair and looking bemused in The Irrational.

Going back to 206, I found that episode interesting because we haven't seen a mass casualty event of that nature before. Were you trying to shake things up?

Arika Lisanne Mittman: Yeah, I like to think that all of our episodes are a little different from one another. That one definitely was a big swing—Alec stands in front of a train. You could sell me on that alone. Alec is going to stand in front of a train. We definitely like to not have all of our episodes be the same. We have our suspense thrillers, and we have our sort of Sherlock Holmesy mysteries, and then we have our more playful episodes like K-Pop or last year the Vegas episode.

They all have kind of a little different character to them. This one was definitely a different kind of story. It was harder to break as a result, it was harder to execute as a result. It was definitely a challenging one, but it was well worth it because it was nice to be able to do something different and with that level of stakes. That's the challenge of an episode like that—keeping those stakes up throughout every act out.

But I think it played really nicely, and it was also an opportunity to explore this thing we had all always found interesting and thought Alec would find interesting, which is this idea of forecasting, this idea of these forecasters who use data to predict the future. We were like, "Oh, Alec would be all over that." So it was a chance to dive into that world as well.

Speaking of Alec standing in front of a train, he promises Kylie he'll be more careful in the future. Realistically, is that something that Alec is willing to do?

Arika Lisanne Mittman: He is about to face the consequences of his behavior a little bit. In Episode 9, Alec is going to face some consequences for his dangerous behaviors, and that will definitely cause him to at least take some serious consideration. But look, he is Alec and he's always going to do maybe a little bit more than he should perhaps. He's always going to put the case first and put other people first, which is going to lead him into perilous situations, whether he intends to or not.

Alec decides he's not going to have his scars removed at this point in his life. Can you expand on his decision and why you chose to take him down this path?

Arika Lisanne Mittman: I would say that that decision is still an open question. He decides not to do it for now, but that question will continue to come up in the second half of the season, as well, before he makes a final decision on that. When we decided to bring back the character of Izzy in Episode 2, it felt like an opportunity for us to have Alec consider himself—you have this character of Izzy who's very young and got her whole life ahead of her.

And so for him, he feels like, for her, it's kind of a no-brainer. Like, "Of course. Put a little time aside now to do all of this and come out of it with a 'normal' life." Alec has a lot more things to consider in terms of whether that's something he wants to do now, whether he wants to do it later, ever, and different factors come into it. We're going to see that that story is not over. We're going to see more to that story as the rest of the season progresses.

There Was Always Going To Be Three Research Assistants On Alec's Team

"We were interested to see how it would play out even as we were deciding how it would play out."

Molly Kunz as Phoebe, Max Lloyd-Jones as Simon, and Arash DeMaxi as Rizwan in The Irrational season 2.

Let's talk about the assistants and Simon's addition. Phoebe did take a break, but was it always the intention to turn the duo into a trio?

Arika Lisanne Mittman: Great question. Actually, it was. When I first created the show, my intent was to have three research assistants. When I wrote the pilot, I threw everything in the kitchen sink into that pilot. Originally there was going to be a storyline about Rizwan and Phoebe hiring a third assistant and there didn't end up being room for that in the pilot.

And then we were kind of busy creating the Rizwan-Phoebe dynamic, and we felt like, there isn't really room this season for a third person in that. We just didn't have the room and the episodes for it. But with 18 episodes, season 2 opened up the opportunity, and we felt like we wanted to shake up the dynamic a little bit. And of course, with Phoebe leaving for a bit of time, it was kind of a natural place to bring in that other research assistant because Rizwan was going to need to have somebody to play off.

So we decided to create that character at that point and then see what bringing Phoebe back in would do to the dynamic. In the writers' room, we're as interested in psychology and those sort of things as Alec is. We were interested to see how it would play out even as we were deciding how it would play out.

When it comes to Rizwan and Phoebe's relationship, did you want to establish that as platonic or more of a will they/won't they situation?

Arika Lisanne Mittman: I guess it depends on what everybody sees in it. I think that's an open question. I'll keep that question open for now, because even in our writer's room, there were very varying perspectives on the romance potential there. So I'm going to leave that open for now.

About The Irrational Season 2

Created and executive produced by Arika Lisanne Mittman

The Irrational follows world-renowned professor of behavioral science Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) as he lends his unique expertise to high-stakes cases and mysteries. His insight and unconventional approach to understanding human behavior lead him to work alongside varying clients ranging from the FBI to everyday people caught in perplexing situations desperate for answers. With the help of his trusted team and social-science experiments, Alec solves crimes and uncovers the truth to answer intriguing, and irrational, questions.

Check out our previous interviews with The Irrational cast and crew:

The Irrational season 2 returns Tuesday, January 7 at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.

The Irrational TV series Poster

Based on the novel by Dan Ariely, The Irrational is a crime drama series created by Arika Mittman. Alec Mercer, a behavioral psychology professor, is enlisted for his uncanny ability to profile and analyze people. Helping to solve several cases for governing bodies, Mercer's world is shaken when he finally meets his equal in a female suspect in a domestic terror case.

Release Date September 25, 2023

Cast Jesse L. Martin , Maahra Hill , Arash DeMaxi , Molly Kunz , Travina Springer , Brian King

Seasons 1

Writers Arika Mittman

Showrunner Arika Mittman

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