LAW & ORDER Post-Mortem: Reid Scott on the ‘Personal Betrayal’ in ‘Big Brother’

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Thursday, October 17 episode of LAW & ORDER.]

After quasi-attempting to help his brother, Vincent (Reid Scott), and the NYPD on the Thursday, October 17 episode of LAW & ORDER, Matt (Ryan Eggold) ended up stabbing them in the back.

When Matt was on the stand, on the verge of testifying about what he knew about the murder of a basketball coach, he ended up refusing to say anything.

“It feels like a personal betrayal,” Scott tells Give Me My Remote, in character. “I put myself on the line for you, and you’re gonna bail on me in the most epic fashion? But then it’s this, also this bafflement…you’re only harming yourself here. You’re helping people who do not care about you all, for this really strange code of conduct that exists amongst these sort of nefarious guys and the circles that they run with.”

“I think Riley just doesn’t understand how [Matt] can turn a blind eye to justice and hurt himself in the process, all for people who would never repay it in the same way,” he continues. “And I don’t know that we ever get an answer as to why Matt does that. I’m hoping that we actually get to learn a little bit more about Matt in future episodes because it’s so interesting why he’s willing to [do this].”

After years of bailing out Matt—including offering him up as an informant to begin with, in an attempt to wipe away the gun charges he was facing—“it might be that Matt just feels that, oh, in the end, my brother will bail me out,” Scott speculates. “And I think he has to come face to face with the harsh reality that that’s not going to happen this time.”

“One of the things I love about LAW & ORDER is that it sometimes raises a lot more questions than it answers,” he continues. “And I love that it gets to really foster a social dialogue. And I think this is an episode that just that does: It leaves the audience very satisfied in the story that they just got to to experience. But it also gives them something to talk about and something to really chew on for themselves. And then picture, God, what would that be like for me if I was in that situation? It’s one of the more interesting things about this franchise that they’ve done really successfully for 24 seasons now.”

Though Riley ended up having to arrest his brother at the end of the hour, “everyone was saying, how do we get him back?” Scott shares. “We’ll have to figure it out. Maybe he’ll break out, or maybe we’ll find some evidence that springs him from jail. But one way or the other, I’m hoping that we see more of Ryan.”

LAW & ORDER, Thursdays, 8/7c, NBC

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