Celebrities
Parker Young presents his ‘Imposters’ strategy — courtesy of ‘Arrow’s’ Alex Davis…
In its first four episodes, Bravo’s newest scripted series “Imposters” becomes itself: Between the sharp wit on the page and its talented cast, Bravo’s finally heading toward realizing its long ambition to create scripted drama and comedy.
The con-artist world of “Imposters” is a dark and sometimes dangerous place. Our crew of heartbroken heroes — including Richard (Parker Young), Ezra (Rob Heaps) and Jules (Marianne Rendom) — are each searching for the same woman: Maddie (Inbar Lavi), who conned them and disappeared.
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“Chaos” is the word that comes to mind, looking down the road at the end of their search — but given just how shadowy her world is proving to be, it’s safe to say this team has no idea what they’ll uncover.
To help us prepare for Tuesday’s (Mar. 7) new episode, series star Parker Young had a fun little chat with Screener — teasing a few intriguing tidbits of what’s to come.
Is the group prepared for the huge can of worms that will all open once you track Maddie down?
Parker Young: Not at all ready for that can of worms! I mean, we’ve all been kind of just driven by this gut impulse to find her, you know, and we haven’t really put much thought into this at all — it’s just been, “We have to do this!” Especially Richard, you know… Richard doesn’t really think through things very thoroughly, he flies by the seat of his pants.
When we find her, we very quickly realize we are in way over our heads — we are in deep, and this goes far beyond just our ex-wife who decided to leave us. This is a deep network of con people — con men and women — and it’s dangerous.
Not only do we have to deal with that group, but there’s also the prospect of the Feds… We’re sort of incriminating ourselves if they get in trouble by the Feds, so it’s a deep can of worms. And then, to top it all off, we all love her, so which one of us “gets” her? And how do we handle all these emotions that are back in the mix all of a sudden? It’s definitely a lot… A lot more than we had anticipated.
There’s a bond of heartbreak between Richard, Ezra and Jules, yet each individual on the team wants to win this girl back. How are those conflicting feelings going to affect things in the long run?
I think we all, kind of, are acting like we’re over her, we don’t really care to have her back — but that is absolutely not the case, especially when we’re confronted with her again. I know Richard says that he just wants his money back — or at least alludes to that fact — but he loves her and wants her back.
We are very conflicted because we’ve grown to love each other as buddies — as a team — but we each want her for ourselves. I’d like to hope that part of this journey is us learning to be okay without her: We’re learning how to be whole on our own, you know, without our better half, or at least what we thought was our better half. And I hope part of that journey is learning to let go of her — to be okay with her being with Ezra, or Jules, in the end.
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With shows like ‘The Catch’ and ‘Better Call Saul,’ it seems the con artist trend continues to thrive on TV — why do you think this subgenre is so appealing to audiences?
I think it’s just this idea of: What if you could be anybody? What if you didn’t have to play by the rules? What if you could just go to the airport, pick a destination, buy a ticket and just disappear — become anything you want? It’s such an exciting prospect, you know? And that’s sort of what our show offers people: This idea of just saying f**ck it to the rules and just going with whatever feels right.
I’m not sure why now… Maybe it’s because of social media, you know, where you can kind of recreate your image. People have their real life, and then the life they put on Instagram. It’s the life people see, and what the world sees you as — maybe that’s part of it? …We just live in a time where you can kind of recreate yourself? Anybody can be president these days! [Laughs] It’s an interesting time that we live in — and the con artist is a way to explore this idea more deeply.
Here’s a hypothetical: If ‘Arrow’s’ political strategist Alex Davis were still alive, how could he help the group in their mission to track down Maddie?
Oh, that’s hilarious… Man, we could use Alex for sure! I think he would be very calculated, and help us make a game plan — which we really don’t have. We’re just sort of floating around aimlessly and Alex, really, would help us with a strategic plan… He would understand the ramifications of our actions and help us, maybe, act slightly more within the law… So that we don’t get in trouble so much.
But, I think the best thing Alex would do for our team would be to enlist the Green Arrow to do a little bit of recon.
Oh, that would definitely give you a leg up in the situation!
Yeah, you know… He’d do a little bit of snooping around at night — scare a few people — you know, get the bad guys off our backs. That would be my hope, anyway…
“Imposters” airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo; the fifth of ten episodes airs Mar. 7. Edited for length and clarity.