With Nikita season 4 premiering tomorrow, star Shane West previews what is coming for Michael in the final six episodes.
The final six
“[W]e’re very blessed to be able to get this season, even if it’s a half-season, because we do get to tell this story,” West tells IGN. “The hardest thing about it has been really, I think, for the writers” because “we were expecting 13 [episodes] at some point, so to get it in six has been very difficult.”
So what can we expect? “Everyone has their own kind of arc going in this. Do you end up killing Amanda? Do you not kill Amanda? If she doesn’t die, does one of the heroes go down? Do more than one of the heroes go down? It’s been more of an exciting season because of that, for better or for worse,” he says.
“It’s also been one of those years where as soon as you got the script, you literally were reading it right off the bat just to see what was happening, because we’ve all become fans of the show as well.”
Michael and Nikita
As a result of Nikita going rogue at the end of season 3, West says, “Michael is reverting back to what he was like in the first season” where he was “in Division” and “clearly working under Percy. He was very emotionless. He had so much sadness in his life that I feel like this is another one of those moments, with Nikita leaving him. I think he just clicks off in the beginning.”
He adds, “But what you’re also gonna see is that they’ve been through so much that he still loves her and he still cares about her, and she obviously still has the same feelings towards him. He’s gonna be there to help save her and save the day and save the crew and Team Nikita.”
But outside of a more business-like relationship, “you wonder if by the end of six, is he going to stay with her in a relationship? That’s the journey that they have to figure out in this one,” he explains.
“There’s stuff for Nikita with Nikita and Amanda, but a lot of what Nikita has and a lot of what Michael has in these six is how are they going to clear her name, save the day, keep everybody alive and still be together? Now, how you do that in six episodes…” he adds with a laugh.
Wrapping things up
West describes the season 4 scripts as “orchestrated perfectly” as “[p]uppet strings are being pulled, and they’re all connecting.” He adds, “What they’ve done is they’ve left a lot of questions” and that the ending is “still kind of open,” which Maggie Q also teased.
But it wouldn’t be Nikita without raised stakes and some tragedy. “Yes, there’s some maybe multiple deaths along the way,” West teases. “One in particular’s sad, some could also be sad. It just depends on who you’re a fan of.”
But all the tragedy will be in service of the greater story, West assures. “There’s going to be no one going down in a ridiculous sense. There’s going to be no one going down for fun, for ratings, so at least we don’t have to worry about that. It’s all going to make sense, to help the other characters out in the story for their future and to help the story along.”
Team dynamics
After Nikita fled, Alex also went off on her own to take a more diplomatic approach to both helping Nikita and stopping the sex trade. That divide will, naturally, influence the dynamics of the team going into the final stretch.
“Because Alex has been off on her whole section of the mission to clear Nikita’s name,” Michael hasn’t spent as much time with her. However, “she’s had Owen with her a lot,” which we see in the promotional stills for episode 2.
That leaves Michael “in the plane with Birkhoff and Ryan” while “Sonya’s been back and forth. But once we get Nikita back, which is going to be pretty immediate — because it has to be! — I’m going on missions with her too.”
Of course, there will be lingering tension between Michael and Nikita, as Michael remains hurt over her leaving. But they can be professionals. “We’ve been a team forever, so in scenes in here that are furthering the storyline — not our personal storylines, but figuring out The Shop, Amanda, obviously hiding from the government — it’s business as usual,” West previews.
“We move along with those scenes. But then what will be expertly crafted and what will be perhaps a scene in the back where I can be loading guns, getting ready for that mission that we had just talked about, and Nikita will come over, and then all of a sudden we’ll have a real moment.”
In an effort to make the best use of time, “we intertwine it with the actual storyline. We make them talk about it when it makes sense.”
Nikita season 4 premieres Friday, November 22 at 9:00 p.m. ET on The CW.