The Catch: Sonya Walger (“Margot”) and Allan Heinberg (Showrunner and Executive Producer)

Okay, so I have a confession to make here, the last time I had time to watch a prime-time television show was in 2010, which probably was Lost the series finally episode. Parenthood is not easy on your TV schedule programming. However, times have changed and thanks to my Dish’s Hopper 3 DVR, I can finally find some new shows to add to my repertoire. 🙂 One of those shows I recently discovered and thanks to the #BeOurGuestEvent is ABC’s The Catch, which coincidentally one of its stars is Sonya Walger, which played Penelope “Penny” Widmore on Lost. Remember her? We had the opportunity to check out a preview of the new season of The Catch and afterwards, seat down for a special Q&A with Sonya Walger (“Margot”) and Allan Heinberg (Showrunner and Executive Producer). Check it out below.

The Catch:
Sonya Walger (“Margot”) and Allan Heinberg (Showrunner and Executive Producer)

The Catch is so addictive. Not only is is addictive, it is sexy and mysterious! And why sexy? OMG, if you haven’t seen this show, you have to, reminds me so much of Sex and the City. The guys are so handsome and the ladies are sensual and sexy! And why mysterious? Well, if you combine the casts’ sensuality and a good game of cat and mouse between their leading lady and her handsome boyfriend and con artist, you got a very mysterious plot that I cannot wait to find out what’s next. The whole show is sort of like The Thomas Crown Affair meets Sex and The City. We asked Sonya about the twists and turns of the show and her response makes you wonder what’s next? In this is what she said..

Sonya:

I think what’s really fun is that Alice and Margot discover they have perhaps more in common than they thought, and there’s a sort of begrudging mutual respect while still there’s a lot of wariness because, Margot is Margot, so you wanna be careful of that.  But I think, those beautiful therapy scenes that Allan wrote us in season one.  What I think was so lovely there was the sort of- Margot had this moment of realizing they were both betrayed by the same guy.

You know, they actually have all this common ground and so that sort of moves into season two where I think they, they sort of realize they’re both strong, empowered, intelligent women who can go toe-to-toe, and neither one is gonna stand down. And then when they realize neither one is gonna stand down, then they have to kind of work together.  I love the relationship.  I obviously just love doing scenes with Mireille, so it was fun.

So, if you are anything like me and you haven’t had the opportunity to see The Catch and you want to know what the show is about before you jump into the fun. This answer to this question is best answer by Allan Heinberg (Showrunner and Executive Producer).

Allan:  

For me, before I came onboard, the show was already a version of the show already existed and I think, a reference to Alice catching Ben.  That was her drive.  But for me it was about love, you can’t have it all, like there’s always gonna be a catch.  The guy you fall in love with who turns out to be your soulmate, it’s also the guy who stole all of your money and is a career criminal.  So, love, is never the whole fantasy. There’s always something pulling you back down to Earth.  As much as you want, I think a lot of us look at love as an escape from our daily lives.

And the catch is that what real love is. Is something, less romantic and a lot harder to achieve. And so that’s the way we’ve been proceeding. There’s always a catch with these relationships and how do you work it through?  How do you work through it?

Another thing to point out here is, if you were a fan of the show before, The Catch got a whole new makeover for season 2 and it will have a whole new dynamic for this season and any season after that. So, this season brings a whole new set of twists, turns, and more investigative mysteries. Here is what Allan had to say about this new makeover.

Allan:

I knew we had to reinvent the show completely in this second season.  I knew that part of what I think turned people off in the beginning, and this partly our fault, we only had one episode to show people by the time we aired, and so I think everybody thought we were doing The Fugitive where I don’t wanna her chase in thirteen episodes.  That makes me tired.  I don’t want that.  And so there wasn’t time now we have ten episodes in the can, and we’re able to show you this season. I don’t know if you guys have seen this new teaser that they just put out for the whole season, but this season is a huge drop, but that’s what last season was, too.

We just weren’t able to communicate that to people or to the press in a way that told people what the show is more clearly.  Season two, we’ve gotta spin everything around, and if we are lucky enough to get a season three, we’re gonna do it again.  Like, it’s gonna be a completely- same characters you love, but new dynamics because I think what happens on TV, you get into the same character cycle.

So, that’s one of the things we work really hard at on The Catch is, always spinning the dynamic a little bit and what two characters have never had a scene together?  Let’s try to figure out how to do that and that’s how the season started this season, was I really wanted more Margot and Alice, what happens when Margot walks in the AVI for the first time.  I wanna watch that show, and then Margot ends up hiring the person she was trying to kill seventy-two hours ago.  So yeah, we’re lucky in that we get to reinvent this show every ten episodes which is really fun.

As I mentioned before this show is sexy, but that’s not all. Allan, The Catch’s Showrunner, and Executive Producer has worked on such popular shows like Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, and Sex in the City. Of course, those shows are not only known for their cast but also their plots. And since Sonya was also in LOST, will we see lots of “Easter Eggs”/pop-culture references on The Catch as well?

Allan:

Yes, we referenced the Thomas Crown Affair in the pilot. We referenced Ernst Lubitsch called Trouble in Paradise in episodes two, three, and four. I don’t know if you remember the princess who comes in, and Ben befriends her- that’s all a steal from Trouble in Paradise which is one of the best movies ever made if you get a chance to see it.

I’m a pop culture junkie, so I try to put as many Easter eggs as possible. I was a huge happy endings fan, and so as Zach Knighton came on at the end of last season. And John Simms came on because I’m a huge fan of John Simms, so pulling in as much of that stuff as possible, as well.

No lost references yet, but…

And Oh, the fashion is so good! Designer Peggy Schnitzer does an amazing job at dressing this fashionable ladies and gentlemen. This is what Allan and Sonya had to say about the show’s fashion.

Sonya: 

I tell you, it’s my favorite thing is going in for a wardrobe fitting, and that is not usually the case.  Usually, you go to wardrobe fittings and there’s a tired lady who’s, we don’t do black on this show. When you go in with Peggy, and there’s just a rack of the most exquisite dresses…

She’s wonderful and has just the best eye, and I think this is the fun of doing season two of the show is, she knows my body better than I do, so the dresses are not ones that I would pick.  I’m the mother of two- I’m lucky to get dressed in the morning, so just to be zipped into a thing with heels, and the hair, and it’s glorious.  And it just means by the time I’ve been through the works, Margot’s there.  It’s such an enormous part of being a character is having the right look and jewelry, and hair, and makeup, and things. It really is.  It’s like zipping on a suit and then half your work is done.

Allan:

I have to say the show is crazy.  It’s just crazy in a great way, but it makes it really fun wardrobe wise because tonight you’re going (you haven’t seen it yet) to a high-stakes underground casino or the Barbara Streisand outfit that you wore to the bank with the bob wig. She walks in as Barbara Streisand and I’m like, can we get away with…?  Is it too much with the glasses and the lips?  No, it’s not too much.  It’s fine. Sex in the City was a bit like this, too, where we just kept pushing and pushing.

But Peggy has such a clear sense of the actor and the character, that it just is a delight.

I cannot wait to see what else Season 2 has to offer. “The Catch” Season 2 returns on Thursday, March 9th at 10/9c as part of ABC’s exciting #TGIT line-up! #TheCatch

“The Catch” is a sexy, scintillating game of cat and mouse between L.A.’s top private investigator, Alice Vaughan (Mireille Enos), and the man she loves, Benjamin Jones (Peter Krause), the world’s most formidable con artist. At the beginning of season two, con man Benjamin Jones has gone from committing the ultimate betrayal to performing the ultimate sacrifice, when he turned himself into the FBI to save Alice from wrongful imprisonment. Now in jail, Ben is forced to reckon with his criminal past, while the team at Anderson Vaughan Investigations must come to terms with getting in bed with the bad guys. How will Alice and Ben game the system — and each other — to stay together and overcome their less-than-legal pasts?

Disclosure: I was provided with an all-expense paid trip to Los Angeles, California to attend the #BeOurGuestEvent. No additional compensation will be received.