4 days ago
Countdown's Elliot Knight Breaks Down That Bell/Valwell Bait-and-Snitch: ‘His Eye Is on the Prize'
The following contains spoilers from the July 23 episode of , now streaming on Prime Video.
Tensions are running high on Countdown, as lead after lead on slippery Volchek comes up empty — or, worse, steers Task Force Hurricane into a dead end because someone apparently is snitching on their next moves.
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That was the case this week, in Episode 7 (of 13), when the team's stealthy raid of a company that works with fissile materials turned up only a smug lawyer sitting inside a recently emptied warehouse. SAC Blythe (played by Eric Dane) was quick to call out the SWAT team leader for having a rat in his ranks, but for naught.
Is there a mole in the midst?
Adding to the paranoia was an earlier scene between FBI Special Agent Keyonte Bell (The Boys' Elliot Knight) and District Attorney Grayson Valwell (Merrick McCartha), the same ambitious politico who has been (unsuccessfully!) bugging Blythe to keep him apprised of each and every development. Valwell spoke of how he worked with Bell's father and, more pointedly, how Bell's father (ahem) knew what to do to get ahead.
Valwell clearly was courting Bell to be his man on the inside. And one might not fault Bell for being susceptible to such an overture, given how stung he was when Blythe chided him for mocking a colleague's bad tip.
Of all Hurricane members, Bell 'definitely has the most to prove, and I think he's the most focused on how he can prove himself,' portrayer Elliot Knight tells TVLine.
But if Bell continues to struggle to impress his SAC, there could be the temptation to at least consider alternative paths up the professional ladder.
'This is a big deal to be a part of a task force like this, but I do think it's important to Bell that his eye is on the prize, and that is to rise up the ranks,' says Knight. 'My question, as Elliot, is why does it sting?' to get dinged by Blythe. 'Is it as simple as him wanting to be the director of the FBI one day? What else is at play?'
Luckily, viewers did not have to wait until next week to find out if Bell took the bait. Because at episode's end — as part of a montage that also included Mark confiding his tumor sitch with Amber and Volchek leading some Belarusian adversaries into a brilliantly explosive trap — Bell met again with Valwell to assert his loyalty to Blythe & Co. and acknowledge that, yes, his father was many things that he isn't.
'Bell knows that Valwell had a professional relationship with his father, and Valwell speaks to that and almost floats the sense of power over Bell — 'I worked with your dad and he made the right choice, because he knew what to do,'' Knight notes. 'It's a test for Bell to see what he will do.'
But did Bell pass said test by refusing to be a snitch? Or is he perhaps cunningly playing a long game?
'There's a question mark over what happened in the past' with his father, says Knight, and 'either Bell has committed to this sense of justice and that's what he's going to fight for always, or there's something else he's looking to work towards.
'I think the smart play is to always assume that there's a bigger picture in this world, than what's happening on the surface,' the actor teases.
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