Spiritually and Financially, Tenaj Williams Says Trey is The Big Winner in Season 3 of JANN

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Right off the bat in the current season of JANN, people were fighting over Tenaj Williams’ character, Trey. “To be wanted is so great, you know what I mean?” Williams said with a laugh. “And how wonderful is it to be wanted so badly, that one sister actually accuses the other sister of being a Satanist? I must be something special if that’s the case.” As Season 3 of JANN continues, with another new episode Monday at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, Williams’ Trey is settling in as Jann’s new personal assistant. Of course, Trey initially was being interviewed to become a nanny for Jann’s sister Max (Zoie Palmer), but Jann swooped in, told Trey that Max worshipped the devil, and stole Trey for herself. Max got her revenge, though, by shaming Jann into offering Trey double the pay, and full medical and dental coverage. So really, the clear winner of the TV season thus far, financially speaking, is Trey. “Yes, absolutely, he’s doing all right,” Williams agreed. “He’s happy.” Financial security is one thing, but being Jann’s personal assistant obviously is not without its challenges. Jann is disorganized and high-strung, whereas Trey has entered the fray presumably as a calming influence. In the first two seasons of JANN, Cale – Jann’s then-manager (and now live-in burden), played by Elena Juatco – was so terrifying as a Type-A personality that she tended to wind up Jann even more. In a way, that set the stage for Trey, as kind of a comic polar opposite. “I think my approach to even auditioning for the show was that I knew the Jann character had a very chaotic energy, so I was thinking, ‘I definitely don’t want to compete with the star of the show, so how could I provide some complementary energy?’ ” Williams recalled. “You don’t get the whole script when you audition, of course, but there were some clues, about how he was into astrology, how he was very organized, and just his reactions in the particular scene I was auditioning with. So I was going for calm energy.” Obviously the producers of JANN liked what they saw. As the season has progressed, the key question surrounding Trey is, will he have a lasting positive influence on Jann, or will he get sucked into her vortex? The comic possibilities of that tension notwithstanding, Williams said one of the things he’s enjoying most is the budding friendship between Trey and Jann’s ailing mother Nora, played by Deborah Grover. “Trey’s relationship with Nora is really, really, beautiful – it’s my favourite thing about the season,” Williams said. “It kind of develops as time goes on. He’s passionate about what he needs to do, and as he gets more comfortable, and feels more and more as if he belongs, a whole bunch of stuff happens. It leads to some moments when perhaps Trey doesn’t react as professionally as he otherwise would. But it comes from him understanding his place a little bit more, and it’s great to see.” Specifically in this Monday’s episode, Trey and Nora team up, in an effort to help Cale overcome her newfound fear of failure. Meanwhile, Jann and her new boyfriend Nate (Charlie Kerr) invite Max and her husband Dave (Patrick Gilmore) to join them for a couples’ weekend in the mountains. The episode also features a guest appearance by Canadian singer-songwriter Bif Naked. billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv