Netflix‘s new political thriller Zero Day is not necessarily what you might categorize as a “sexy show,” but one scintillating subplot paired up two of Hollywood’s most beloved actors.
**Spoilers for Zero Day, now streaming on Netflix**
In Zero Day Episode 2, we learn that Roger Carlson (Jesse Plemons) and Alex Mullen (Lizzy Caplan) have more in common than shared father figure President George Mullen (Robert De Niro). The President’s loyal body man not only dated the Commander in Chief’s daughter, but Roger and Alex continue to shack up whenever the opportunity strikes!
In fact, the moment where this romantic connection clicks into place comes in Zero Day Episode 2. President Mullen has tasked Roger with visiting Alex at her NYC apartment to try to come to some sort of political agreement about the Zero Day Commission. George mentions something about how Roger is one of the only people who can get through to his daughter.
After Roger and Alex snipe back and forth about the stressful situation the whole country now finds themselves in, he bluntly asks, “Are we doing this or not?” Then after a cooly witty back and forth, Alex walks into her bedroom, matter-of-factly taking off her shirt. Roger follows, undressing himself in turn. The casualness of the situation reflects how deep this relationship must go.
“I loved those scenes,” Lizzy Caplan told DECIDER. “We knew from very early on that there was a rich history that we wanted to convey.”
That history includes Alex’s deceased brother, Nick (Jackson Eick). We learn over the course of the series that the major reason President Mullen opted not to seek reelection was because Nick perished from a heroin overdose.
“The three of them, we decided, were very, very close,” Caplan said. “There are very few people that can actually understand what it’s like to grow up in that family, in that White House, with that much of that many eyeballs on you all the time.”
“Especially when you’re like Roger and Alex and Alex’s brother, where they like to have a good time. They party a little too much. You know, they’re sort of rebellious spirits.” Caplan was of course referring to the cocaine we know Alex does, the heroin Nick did, and the fact that Roger mentions being in Narcotics Anonymous.
Caplan also explained that she and Plemons worked hard to ensure the Zero Day audience could intuit this rich history even if the script didn’t point it out.
“We really didn’t have that many scenes together and the scenes that we did have together, they’re talking about this massive attack that is currently at the forefront of everybody’s mind,” she said. “So how do you integrate this history in these moments?”
“Jesse and I talked a lot about it. We wanted to refer back to very specific memories that they would have had together that we hoped that filled out some kind of tapestry between them, that it felt like they had known each other for a really long time.”
Things like the couple’s playful use of official language or Roger’s recollections of the lake house obviously play into this, inviting the audience into their shared history.
“That shared experience is why she can open up to him and and rely on him.,” Caplan said. “I think she probably has very few people outside of her family and outside of Roger who she could feel comfortable enough doing that with.”
