Necessary Roughness Preview: Mehcad Brooks Talks “Frozen Fish Sticks” [INTERVIEW AND VIDEO] 

[WARNING: Spoilers for tonight’s episode]

USA Network’s Necessary Roughness is in a good place right now. There’s going to be a season 3 of the show (yay!) and tonight, the rest of season 2 begins with a really enjoyable episode (double yay!).

Synopsis for tonight’s “Frozen Fish Sticks”: Dr. Dani (Callie Thorne) wants to get back to work with her patients, but getting there might require her to become a patient herself. TK (Mehcad Brooks) returns to the Hawks ready to work, only to find that another wide-out has taken his place.  Juliette Pittman (guest star Danielle Panabaker), Nico (Scott Cohen) and the Hawks’ front office clash in the wake of Marshall Pittman’s death.

A few hints at what you’re going to see:

• TK gets out of rehab and rejoins the Hawks. Let’s just say his return doesn’t go smoothly. Does anything when he’s involved?
• What’s very interesting is the case-of-the-week. The person who’s seeking help for what ails her or him? Kind of surprising. But when you really think about it, it makes sense.
• Dani’s dealing with issues of the male persuasion. In the mid-season finale, she and Nico kissed. Where do those two go from here? And how is this all going to affect Matt?
• TK gets some competition in the form of a new wide receiver that joined the Hawks in his absence. “Toes” Kittredge is the man in the locker room right now. How does TK deal with this new rival?
• Marshall Pittman’s daughter gets some serious play in this episode — her presence will affect the future of the Hawks.
• Dani’s daughter — Lindsay’s actually supporting her mom in “Frozen Fish Sticks” which is cool. As for Ray Jay — he gets his flirt on.

TV Goodness recently took part in a press conference call with TK himself — Mehcad Brooks. The actor turned TV wide receiver talked to reporters about what’s going on with his character over these next few episodes.

About a more mature TK

MEHCAD BROOKS: He begins to grow up a little bit and I think that starts to become very apparent after his realization that he’s an addict and the drug addiction and going to rehab and so on and so forth. So, yes, there is a lot of growth that you do see from TK coming up very soon. And as an actor, it’s interesting to play because in all of our lives, when we grow up, we have relapses with responsibility. We have relapses with our past selves and TK’s no different. He’s just a little more extreme than most of us. So, it’s fun to play as an actor.

About TK’s competition

BROOKS: It’s a tough road to travel for TK when he comes back into something that’s such a high competition level. Not to mention, the New York Hawks have hired a star wide receiver in his absence, just in case TK, you know, can’t pull the cart up the hill. And this guy’s great. He’s scoring touchdowns left and right, and TK’s kind of burning inside, and wanting to get back to the field but he’s lost a bit of his step. He’s been in rehab. He’s had some time off from the field. He really hasn’t been training the way that these other guys have, so it’s a very difficult transition to get back into it for him. But, in Terrence King fashion, he does what he can and I want to say he prevails, but you’ll have to wait and see.

About TK continuing to rely on Dr. Dani for help

BROOKS:  You’re going to see TK struggling with his sobriety, Dani helping him with that. Dani sort of, you know, figuring out her love life and figuring out her professional life, and TK making that more difficult, as  he tends to do.

About TK and Marshall Pittman’s daughter

BROOKS: They do start hanging out a little bit and you know, one thing leads to another and then there’s an opportunity for TK to cross the line. And I’m not going to say that he does, but it’s definitely a good career move for him if he does. We start to get a little insight into how much that he’s changed based on this relationship.

On getting a season 3

BROOKS:  At a certain point, I had just kind of given up on it and said, ‘Hey, [we] had two great seasons and that it is what it is.’ And like I hadn’t really had a show work out past two seasons yet, and that was a big wall for me. When I got that call, I was jet-lagged, getting tired because I’d been traveling around, but I didn’t care where I was. I started screaming and like, ‘Yes! That’s right.’ It’s also nice to know that this far down the line – I’ve been doing this professionally for ten years – that you can still have moments that are surprising and unexpected, and just completely full of satisfaction and elation. It’s great.

Necessary Roughness airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on USA Network. Peter MacNicol [Ally McBeal, Numb3rs], Danielle Panabaker [Shark, Grimm, Franklin & Bash] and Robbie Jones [One Tree Hill and Hellcats] guest star.