"Nikita and Michael have this very adult problem that I told you guys was coming, and I like the problem! Kudos to Craig and the writers for creating something that wasn't cheesy. It wasn't 'Oh he looked at another woman' or 'Whoops, she slept with someone else,' you know what I mean? Which happens on soaps and on shows like, I don't know Gossip Girl or whatever. It can't happen on our show because the integrity would be lost, so it would have to be something that he couldn't control, that he didn't ask for, that she can't fix, which is maddening for someone who's in control normally. And the adult thing for Nikita is to not deny him," Nikita series star Maggie Q was animated when she spoke of the recent complications for her on-screen romance over lunch in Los Angeles.
"You have to be an adult. You have to just say 'You're not really mine unless you want to be here a thousand percent,' and if you still have dreams of a family, and dreams of all that, I can't give that to you right now. That's not something [Nikita and Michael] can do, and it really is up to Michael, really."
Michael (Shane West), who, at least of late, has been off playing house overseas. To his credit, he didn't know he had a young son; it's not like he was keeping a secret this whole time. He deserves his time to bond with the boy, all parties involved seem to agree. However, distance can often be a huge detriment in a relationship, and this isn't your typical relationship anyway. With Michael away, Nikita isn't going to just sit at home and wait for his return. She's still going out on missions-- Q shared that the biggest issue for her is now finding another black box so she will once again have some leverage-- and she's not going out on these missions alone.
Re-enter Owen (Devon Sawa) in the episode entitled "Guardians." Though Owen and Nikita have always had a very platonic, brother-sister like relationship, the tension is sure to be palpable now that Michael isn't around. "He's not being a cheeseball, and he's not being a perv, and he's not trying-- he's just being himself," Q explained. "In those moments, it's hurting her. Because if he was hitting on her, it'd be easy to be like 'Ugh, what an idiot.' But he's not. He's just being something in the moment that he needs, and that's kind of painful for her."
But perhaps not for the obvious reasons. Q shared that through Owen, not only can Nikita "emote" in a way she usually doesn't have a chance to, but also her eyes will be opened to another side to relationships-- one she doesn't have with Michael. Will she come to long for that-- even further sense of normalcy? That still remains to be seen.
"You know when you have this struggle with someone, and it's always been struggle, struggle, struggle?" Q asked LA TV Insider Examiner candidly. "One of my story ideas for the writers was when Owen comes back, I need him to do things that Michael never does for her. The little things. Michael doesn't take her to dinner. Michael doesn't make a bath for her. Because it's all work-- all work, all the time-- and they've got this cause, right? So I actually had all of these little ideas, and they actually incorporated them-- Albert Kim wrote the script, and there's this lvoely scene where she wakes up, and she walks in, and Owen's made breakfast for her, and she's like 'Uh...' And he's all 'So, when I was detoxing, I learned how to cook, you know, because I was in parts of the world where the food wasn't so good...' And she's just kind of shell-shocked, and there's this amazing scene, where he just kind of blatantly-- she's like 'This is good, like it's actually good; you can cook!' And in his Owen, innocent way, he's like 'What does Michael make for you?' And she has nothing. She doesn't have anything to say because they don't make that time for each other."
Owen and Nikita also want the exact same things: to get out of this life, while Michael still feels the pull, despite now knowing there is yet another party who could get hurt by his profession. But don't completely freak out, all you Mikita fans! Things can't possibly be so smooth sailing with Owen that Nikita just throws away the "very true love" she has for Michael. As Q said, it hurts her to see this side of Owen because she would so badly want everything with Michael. And maybe she will get that eventually. You know, once the complete truth about Cassandra (Helena Mattsson) coms out. And when she realizes Owen is, after all, still working with Gogol, a group that wants Nikita dead more than anything else-- the latter of which she learns sooner rather than later.
"She confronts him about that in the episode, too," Q laughed, "which is very funny because you get to see Nikita mad. Not just like stoic mad, like 'WHAT!?' Like, W-T-F, caps, caps, caps! Owen, dude, what are you doing? This is the organization that wants me dead, and you're like BFFs with Ari!?"
"Guardians," a photo preview for which you can see in the slideshow to the left, is the final episode of 2011, and obviously isn't going to be an emotional one! We will have some more tidbits and spoilers from Q on the second half of the season after "Guardians" airs, so be sure to bookmark this page!
Nikita airs on The CW on Friday nights at 8pm. "Guardians airs on December 2nd 2011.
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