‘Law & Order’: Reid Scott Says Riley ‘Spirals’ After Major Incident During Case

Viewers tuning in to the Thursday, April 2, episode of Law & Order will see a different side of Detective Vincent Riley (Reid Scott) after things take a turn during an investigation when a woman’s body is found in a suitcase.

During the course of the investigation, Riley “pursues this case in a way that borders on reckless,” says Scott, and the result is a car accident while he’s on duty. Below, he previews the episode.

Riley must justify his actions when he’s involved in a car accident while on duty. What can you preview about the events leading up to that?

Reid Scott: Riley and Walker [David Ajala] catch a case that is very disturbing, very emotionally charged. Anything involving a young victim really, really bothers Riley. As a family man, as a father, I think he really internalizes those cases and personalizes those cases. In this particular case, there’s a young victim, so he’s kind of charged from the beginning and it leads him to sort of act in a way and pursue this case in a way that kind of borders on reckless, which is unusual for him. He’s not usually the kind of guy who loses control, but in this case, he does.

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What can you tease about the aftermath of this accident? 

The ramifications of the accident itself are massive. This actually spirals him out for a bit.

How are we going to see him handling that when it comes to, say, leaning on anyone?

It’s a big problem for Riley in that he doesn’t lean on anyone. He likes to sort of go it alone when it comes to these emotional challenges, which is not to say that we don’t see the people closest to him in his professional world really reach out to him, but he has a hard time accepting their offers for assistance. We see Walker really try to be there for him as a new partner. We see Brady [Maura Tierney] as the sort of staunch ally and now they’re real friends within the department. She tries to help him out.

We actually get to meet his wife [Cadden Jones], which I love. I love anything that sort of really digs into the backstory and the personal life and the overall character of Riley. We see her try to offer some support, but he’s so distraught and so thrown by what’s transpired that he can’t see clearly. And he doesn’t realize that I think he’s in need of more help than he actually perceived himself, but that these attempts to reach him are his way out of this darkness.

Yeah, because Riley and Walker are still getting to know each other, so that also factors in, right?

Yeah. They’re on the same page. I think they really do see each other as teammates at this point, but there’s just not that history there. And Walker being a bit younger than Riley, I imagine it is tougher for a more senior detective to really lean on, in that emotional way, a younger detective. I think he appreciates the help and feels the support, but I don’t know that he knows how to accept that help.

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And with Brady, I think there’s something of, their relationship was a bit fraught at first. So I think they really do respect each other and they bonded as colleagues and as friends. But I also would imagine that as a detective, you don’t want to put this kind of stuff on the plate of your lieutenant because their plate’s already full.

So he’s sort of a man without a country, or he perceives himself as such. So he tries to take it all on himself, which is a very Riley thing to do. But I think in this particular case, it really gets the better of him. And again, I love seeing those cracks and fissures in a character’s own personal story because it’s just so human and so real. I think it’s something that our writers have done an exceptional job of over the last few seasons since I joined the show, of really opening up those cans of worms for all the wonderful drama and tension that they can provide. And I think this particular episode is a wonderful example of that.

You brought up we’re meeting his wife. What can you say about how that relationship’s going?

It appears that they’re on some solid ground. He’s back home. They’re making another go at it. Riley’s a very lucky man, though. He has a very loving family who I think he kind of put through the wringer with some of his own personal issues. I imagine it must be incredibly difficult to be the family of a detective knowing that this detective is, 23 hours out of the day, trying to protect their family from some of the difficult, rather gruesome details that are part of his everyday. But I think he’s in a better place and we see a really wonderful relationship between he and his daughter, which has been really fun to play with.

And with the introduction of Riley’s wife, I think you see another bit of that support system that he has at his disposal, but because they’re sort of relatively new at giving it the second chance, there’s still some fog clouding his judgment in how to lean on his wife. I was sort of playing with the fact that it’s like, well, this relationship is still again rather fragile, so he doesn’t want to put too much on it. So he makes the mistake of white-knuckling it and taking it all on himself and not letting his family in the way that he should.

Law & Order, Thursdays, 8/7c, NBC

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