Stephen Amell and Hamza Haq Grapple With The Intense Finale of THE BORDERLINE

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede   As the penultimate episode of THE BORDERLINE concluded last week, there was a showdown between Henry, played by Stephen Amell, and Tommy, played by Hamza Haq. Notably, the showdown was both philosophical and literal, as they stared each other down in a motel parking lot. Tommy had told Miles, played by Jeremy Watson, to stay in the car. “Why?” Miles asked. Tommy responded ominously, “he looks like he wants to fight.” What happens next will be revealed in the exciting season finale of THE BORDERLINE, which drops Friday, March 13 on Crave (where all previous episodes are also available). To say that the finale features some twists and turns would be wildly underselling it. Henry, a police officer, has been doing his version of protecting his childhood friend Tommy, who is neck-deep in some nasty drug business. But at times Tommy has wished that Henry’s so-called protection could take a different form, or even that Henry would just butt out. And yet Henry and Tommy are bonded forever by childhood experience. Amell and Haq were asked that if they had known each other in childhood, what could they have bonded over to extend their friendship into adulthood? “Pro wrestling!” the pair yelled in unison, practically jumping out of their chairs. “I mean, that’s what happened in real time, even when we’re at this age,” Haq added excitedly. Okay, there may or may not be some wrestling between the Henry and Tommy characters in THE BORDERLINE finale. Be that as it may, the concept of childhood friendships that can never be escaped, for better or for worse, is what has been driving the plot in the series. “I think one of the cool things about this show, with the characters that Graeme Stewart has created, is that I hope everyone who is watching has been saying to Henry, ‘stop helping that guy!’ ” Amell said. “And yet, Henry will just go back to it.” THE BORDERLINE also asks a philosophical question about law enforcement, particularly in small towns where everybody knows everybody: is it really possible to be an effective and unbiased police officer in the specific place where you grew up? “I can’t speak to the real world, but in film and television, the answer is a definitive no,” said Amell, prompting laughter. “You cannot.” Haq chimed in, “if the goal for a police officer is to protect and serve, there’s a nuance to that as well. Like, he can get the job done, but who is he protecting? Who is he serving? Who is this in service of? I think for the duration of our show, Henry is trying to answer that question. He’s saying, ‘my job is to protect and serve, but I also have to protect my family, and I have to protect the community. And if this one thing falls, it could have very serious repercussions for a lot of other things.’ So it’s just him mulling that over. Sorry to jump in there.” “No, you got it,” Amell replied. But do the Tommys of the world ever really realize how their actions can put the Henrys of the world into horrible moral dilemmas that can have life-changing consequences? “I’ll take this one: no, they don’t,” said Amell, prompting laughter again. “I don’t think the Tommy character has ever thought further ahead than what he’s going to eat for dinner that night.” But Haq had a slightly different take on Tommy. “I think the Tommys of the world are outsiders looking for a place to belong,” Haq said. “He lands in this environment through the foster system. I think he spends his entire life trying to figure out what his place is. He’s in survival mode as a habit, to the point that I don’t think he has the time or the tools to really think about his environment. He sees himself as outside of it, and everything that he’s doing is him trying to become a part of it. But like a transplant that won’t take, it’s as if the body is rejecting him, and he’s just in this constant state of trying to figure out why. His instinct is always to run, even though it’s destroying him. So I think it’s a lose-lose for Tommy, and for me, a lot of the arc for the character was just trying to reconcile that, while maintaining a friendship with Henry, and oftentimes making questionable decisions.” From all angles, there’s still plenty to wrestle with in the finale of THE BORDERLINE. Will anyone be left standing in that motel parking lot?   billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv