Exclusive Interview
Why Is Alec & Rose’s Relationship Working on ‘The Irrational’? Karen David Explains
When The Irrational first premiered, and we met exes Alec (Jesse L. Martin) and Marisa (Maahra Hill), our first thought was that the drama would eventually bring them back together. And it still can! But over the course of the first season and now into the second, we’ve seen Alec fall for fixer Rose (Karen David), and we have to say, we’re rooting for these two to make it.
It was in the December 3 midseason finale that she admitted that she had to be “less than honest” in her line of work sometimes, and she wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing when she previously let someone take the blame for a client’s actions. She also wasn’t sure she wouldn’t do it again. Rose worried that “knowing what I do and how I need to do it might make it hard to trust me.” But Alec countered, “I wouldn’t be falling in love with somebody that I couldn’t trust.” She responded in kind, “I love you, Alec, so much.” It was a major step for the two.
“These are two people that share a lot in common. They have certainly lived life, have a lot of life experience. They know the meaning of loss, trauma, and I think through their experiences, they’ve bonded on a level that is so meaningful for both of them,” David tells Swooon. “They bring out the best in each other, and I think Alec is this wonderful and very much needed mirror for someone like Rose — Rose being MI6, that whole mindset of an MI6 agent, which she was for years, was her identity. That’s all she knew herself as and only wanted to know herself as. And that was part of her escapism from the traumas and the chaos that she has in her mind. And, of course, she meets someone like Alec, who makes her feel seen, who really sees Rose for who she is, for all the things that she is and for all the things that she’s not. He loves her for all her imperfections as well.”
For both Rose and Alec, this relationship is “a very inclusive and safe space for both of them to be themselves, to talk about very vulnerable experiences,” notes David. “And Alec is there to tell Rose that he’s not there to judge. And I think that’s a really big deal for Rose. She’s never met anyone quite like Alec. I don’t think anyone has met anyone quite like Alec. He is a very special human being and his empathy and his huge heart and capacity to care for people is just what makes us all love Alec Mercer.”
Showrunner Arika Lisanne Mittman credits Martin and David’s chemistry as well as Rose coming into Alec’s life at the right time, when he was ready to move past his divorce and let it go. “She made him realize that there were other possibilities out there besides the one that he had imagined for himself,” she told TV Insider. “And seeing somebody intriguing and dynamic like Rose be interested in him, I think, really helped him and was kind of that last hurdle in getting past his divorce.”
Mittman also shared that while she likes to put challenges in the couple’s path, “I do really like the honest authenticity of their relationship, and we’re trying to not TV them and be like, oh, how do we break them up now? That’s not what we’re doing. We are really representing the adult dynamic among Alec, Marisa, and Rose.” That included Marisa and Rose teaming up for a case while Alec was sidelined in the January 7 midseason premiere.
What do you think of Alec and Rose’s relationship? Let us know in the comments section below.
The Irrational, Tuesdays, 10/9c, NBC
