Netflix‘s Zero Day is a show that’s constantly feinting its audience. Whether we’re talking about the red herrings that pop up on President George Mullen’s (Robert De Niro) hunt for the villains behind Zero Day or even our emotional expectations for the characters. Case in point: the complex relationship between the President’s beloved wife Sheila (Joan Allen) and his former chief of staff Valerie Whitesell (Connie Britton). As we watch Sheila woo Valerie back to her husband’s side, it soon becomes apparent that these women share a unique connection.
**Spoilers for Zero Day, now streaming on Netflix**
Valerie had a clandestine affair with the President that resulted in a now 12-year-old daughter.
By asking Valerie to return to George’s side as chief of staff, Sheila is creating a new opportunity for infidelity to occur. It’s a move that leaves Sheila’s own daughter, Alex (Lizzy Caplan), apoplectic. For some reason, though, Sheila trusts Valerie to do what’s right and keep an eye on her fraying husband. It creates a fresh interpretation of a wife and mistress’s relationship that Zero Day star Joan Allen told DECIDER was “fun” for her and Britton to tackle.
“Certain actors — Connie and I being one of them — we like go into like, ‘What were they doing twenty years ago and what was the relationship?’” Allen said.
The Zero Day star revealed that she, Britton, and their director, Lesli Linka Glatter, agreed that once upon a time Sheila and Valerie were friends. That relationship only broke abruptly because of the affair.
“It’s a very, very long standing relationship,” Allen said. “I think when they meet up again, several years have passed. So that also changes the perspective.”
“And if there are some scars, you know, scarring, that’s okay. But I think it creates a really interesting dynamic between the two of us.”
Sheila’s ability to embrace Valerie as an ally in protecting George despite that “scarring” also speaks to her absolute trust and faith in her husband. After all, George only agrees to join the Zero Day Commission because she begs him to.
“The suspension of habeas corpus potentially is an extremely dangerous prospect,” Allen said. “I think she doesn’t feel that there’s anybody else that she could trust within the country, because I think she’s quite a patriot herself, that that would be able to manage that except him.“
As Zero Day fans already know, though, George does abuse his power at times. He specifically uses torture techniques to interrogate talk show host Evan Green (Dan Stevens), mainly because Green is his harshest critic. Allen acknowledged to DECIDER that Sheila probably has no idea her husband is capable of this.
“Yeah, I think she probably doesn’t see that,” she said. “I don’t think she thinks he’s perfect, but I think she believes that he is, at heart, a very good person, was a good president, put forth policies that she believed were, in her opinion, good for the country.”
Which probably sums up how Sheila feels about her romantic rival Valerie, to boot. Not perfect, but good at heart, and, in Sheila’s eyes, “good for the country.”
