The main characters, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, are based on characters created by David Baldacci who appear in his novels Split Second, Hour Game, Simple Genius, First Family, and The Sixth Man.
Both are former Secret Service agents who made huge mistakes that ended their careers. Recovering alcoholic Sean King’s mistake occurred when the presidential candidate he was protecting was assassinated. Yikes. Not sure how you get over that one. Former Olympic athlete, Michelle Maxwell’s charge disappeared on her. Still, not great to lose the man you are protecting.
Past failures and their release from the Secret Service don’t stop them from fighting crime on their own and that’s where this show starts. I can see both characters doing anything to find the bad guys, having failed so spectacularly in the past.
It seems that the series also aims to emulate the magic between Nathan Fillion’s Richard Castle and Stania Katic’s Kate Beckett on ABC’s Castle. The comparison is unavoidable especially with TNT showing so many reruns of Castle. That type of chemistry is hard to duplicate, but we’ll see how they do.
Other King & Maxwell cast members include:
- Ryan Hurst (Opie from Sons of Anarchy) as Edgar Roy, an autistic man who is a functional adult;
- Michael O’Keefe (Danny the caddy from the 1980 movie, Caddyshack) as FBI Special Agent Rigby;
- Chris Butler (Matan Brody from The Good Wife and DDA Meeks from The Closer) as FBI Special Agent Carter;
- Cynthia Addai Robinson as Megan Ainsley;
- Mark Lutz as Tom Taylor.
Catherine Bell (Sarah “Mac” MacKenzie from JAG and Denise Sherwood from Army Wives) is scheduled to guest star in several episodes this first season as King’s former love interest, Jane Dillinger. I find this particularly interesting because it’s so similar to Catherine Bell’s path from guest star to lead on JAG. Bell was originally cast as an old girlfriend of Harm’s who was murdered in season 1. The chemistry between Bell and David James Elliott, who played Harm, was so great, they brought her back as Sarah in season 2 explaining that the similarity in their looks made Harm a little uneasy.
King & Maxwell premieres right after the season 2 premiere of Tenney’s most recent former show, Major Crimes in which he played FBI Special Agent Fritz Howard. I wonder if old Fritz will still make an appearance on Major Crimes every now and then. Or would it be too jarring to see him as Fritz for one hour on Major Crimes and as Sean King the next?
Fans of Tenney from The Closer have already started suggesting Closer star Kyra Sedgwick make a guest appearance on King & Maxwell. I imagine this would be ruled out, at least in the first season for the same reason Fritz can’t stay on Major Crimes—we can’t be watching Sean Maxwell and thinking: Hey! That’s Fritz.
In any event, because of my faith in David Baldacci and Jon Tenney, I plan to watch King & Maxwell.
What about you? Will you tune in?
Deborah Lacy likes speakeasies, yellow heirloom tomatoes, and crime fiction. She blogs at Mystery Playground. You can find her on Twitter @quippy.
I’ll give it a shot with you!
Thanks for the heads up. I had no idea this was coming. DVR is already set.
I am looking forward to this show, hope it lives up to a full season!!! I love Jon Tenney…
@sk1336 – Jon Tenney is pretty fabulous. Don’t forget to watch tonight.