‘Code Black’ Season 2 Preview: Realism, Excitement, and Rob Lowe
When Code Black scrubs in for its second season on CBS, viewers will immediately notice that Angels Memorial Hospital emergency room has undergone a bit of a personnel change. Two freshman year residents (Bonnie Somerville and Raza Jeffrey) have moved on to other hospitals, replaced by a trio of nervous newcomers (Noah Gray-Cabey, Nafessa Williams and Emily Tyra). Meanwhile, hard-headed surgery chief, Mike Campbell (Boris Kodjoe) is now also serving as the emergency room chief to the consternation of many, including the ER’s residency director, Leanne Rorish (Marcia Gay Harden).
But the doctor in the house that’s going to be drawing the most attention is the one who looks a lot like Rob Lowe. That’s because it is Rob Lowe, of course, newly sporting a new haircut and stubble befitting his rank as Ethan Willis, a combat doctor with the U.S. Army who has been freshly embedded in the Angels ER. It’s a change of career path for the actor (unless you’re counting the short-lived Dr. Vegas, which even Lowe would probably advise against), who has most recently played a fake lawyer on The Grinder and an overeager city manager on Parks and Recreation. “This role definitely takes him back to the characters he was known for before he became ‘Funny Rob Lowe,’” says Code Black creator, Michael Seitzman, of Lowe’s return to the dramatic territory he previously mined on The West Wing and Brothers & Sisters. “He has a natural funny bone, and it took the Hollywood community a long time to realize that.”
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But the actor’s funny bone won’t get much exposure on Code Black, which is sticking to the three show-defining hallmarks that Seitzman established in the first season: “One is an aggressive realism, the other is a breathless excitement and the third is intense emotion. That’s the basic texture for the series.” That emphasis on realism is how Lowe’s character was created in the first place. According to Seitzman, Ethan Willis grew out of conversations that he had with Colonel Todd E. Rasmussen, the director of the Combat Casualty Care Research Program or CCCRP, a medical research division of the U.S. Army. “He called me at the end of the first season and told me that his whole unit watched our show, because the fidelity to medicine was something they hadn’t seen onscreen before,” says Seitzman. “That prompted me to ask how the CCCRP disseminates all its learning in combat medicine, and he told me that they often place doctors right out of combat situations in hospitals. And that’s our character — that’s Willis.”
The season premiere of Code Black wastes little time injecting a shot of Lowe into the series. Our first glimpse of Willis finds him on a helicopter bound for a Malibu beach, where a shark attack has claimed multiple victims. “There are great white sightings around that area all the time,” Seitzman explains. “We thought it would be a muscular way to burst into the show and introduce this new character. Making that sequence was a big, bloody mess! We poured fake, biodegradable blood all over the beach. With the California government’s permission, of course.”
After mopping up seaside, Willis flies directly Angels Memorial, where he’s instantly thrust into the simmering workplace tension between Leanne and Mike. And, for now at least, it sounds like he’s Team Leanne all the way. “They both believe in a certain kind of cowboy medicine — you do what it takes to save the patient. And they also each have a secret pain, so what they do provides some kind of life force. So they become good friends onscreen, just like I’m watching Rob and Marcia become good friends offscreen.” As for whether Willis and Campbell have any hope of ever being friends, Kodjoe’s answer is… don’t count on it. “He’s an alpha dog, and I’m an alpha dog,” the actor tells Yahoo TV. “That’s why I love playing this role; Mike is an intelligent and committed surgeon with a healthy ego and a lot of confidence. He may not be as socially skilled as the other doctors in the hospital, but he knows what needs to be done and does it.” Of course, when the cameras aren’t rolling, the alpha dogs play nicely together. “Rob’s a great guy with tons of stories,” says Kodjoe. “He’s fit right into our show seamlessly.”
And Seitzman expects the transition will prove equally seamless for viewers returning to Code Black or checking it out for the first time because of Lowe’s presence. “I want them to feel like they can start watching from the first episode of this season. We’re resetting the same way a real hospital would; at the beginning of the year, new residents [and doctors] show up. So there’s been an overhaul, yet it’s still the same show.”
Code Black premieres Sept. 28 at 10 p.m. on CBS
