Previewing SurrealEstate “The Butler Didn’t” with George R. Olson 

[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]

Y’all know how I am about my fandoms and Killjoys, in particular, so imagine my unbridled joy when Patrick Garrow showed up in SurrealEstate this week. And that’s on top of the iconic Eric Peterson (Corner Gas). “The Butler Didn’t” finds the team investigating the years-earlier mysterious death of Genevieve Wilson (Ruth Lawrence), whose ghost now reenacts her wedding day hanging by dropping over the banister from the second floor to scare the bejesus out of whomever’s unlucky enough to be at the bottom of the stairs.

Peterson plays the homeowner, Andrew Tolliver, a retired businessman who’s finally had enough and is ready to part with the house but needs it cleared first. Susan is of course sympathetic to his plight. After she and Luke receive a cryptic message from the ghost, the gang convenes to crowdsource theories and solve what they now believe was a murder and not a suicide as long presumed. Part of that involves interviewing her son, Nathaniel, played in all his delightfully wackadoodle glory by Garrow in, I think, the lightest, zaniest role he’s had (and the hair is BACK, y’all).

The case also brings the tension simmering between Susan and Luke about who’s on first to a head, with Luke trying to assert more control and Susan retreating more into her own dream home. Meanwhile, Zooey takes the next step in her own career. I spoke with series creator and showrunner George R. Olson earlier today about the delicate art of balancing Luke and Susan’s relationship as the characters find themselves on opposite trajectories.

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Olson says getting to explore the balance of who Luke was and who he is now was a lot of fun this season. “One of the things that makes Luke such a great character for me is that he has this combination of pragmatism and compassion. One of the really nice discoveries that we walked into or, or kind of found our way into about Luke, was that even without his powers, it doesn’t change the fundamental compassion of the guy and the way he looks at this other world, which he’s been given a rare glimpse into,” Olson explains.

“And even as someone who’s lost the ability to just innately be able to communicate and negotiate with them, it’s fun to see the ways in which Luke, is struggling, not only with the tactical ability to reach out, but also the feeling that I think any of us would get if we lost an essential part of who we were. And exploring that was so much fun in this season and [having him say], ‘Okay, without this, who am I? Am I just a real estate guy? And is that enough?’ And having the others play against that.”

Olson adds that the dynamic between Luke and Susan as they follow paths away from each other was also a rich story to tell. “Susan [is] at a time in her life when she’s feeling like she is just firing on all cylinders. She is ready to go. And she’s doing wonderful things, running the agency in his absence. And then he comes back and she feels really marginalized and it’s not hard to understand why,” he shares.

“And the tough part and the wonderful part about Tim Rozon is he can play a guy who’s insecure and being kind of a jerk, but we still like him. We can see that the fundamental decency is still there. I don’t care how nice and kind you are, sometimes you’re gonna be a jerk. It’s what people are. It’s what people do. And the way he’s able to balance some of those jerky lines that we give him … he’d read it in the script and look at me and say, ‘Really?’ And I’d just say, ‘Get to work, Rozon,'” he laughs.

“And we see that [play out] in having them do that awkward little fox trot of people who fundamentally love each other but who are right now really getting tired of each other. And that was just an enormously fun sandbox in which to play.”

Check back Wednesday after the East coast air for more of my conversation with producing director Danishka Esterhazy, who directs the episode written by Duana Taha. 

SurrealEstate airs Wednesdays at 10 pm/9c on Syfy in the US and CTV Sci-Fi and Crave in Canada. You can catch the first two episodes now streaming on those platforms. ICYMI, our Season 1 and 2 coverage is here. Here’s a preview of “The Butler Didn’t.”

Photos courtesy of Duncan de Young/Blue Ice Pictures/Syfy; video courtesy of Syfy.