“We thought we were over,” All Rise executive producer and showrunner Dee Harris Lawrence said about CBS’ decision to cancel the series after two seasons. In a twist of fate, fans get a third season beginning tonight on OWN. “The passion and excitement from OWN of having the show and the fact that everybody in the cast wanted to return, it all of a sudden ignited all of us, so that was really exciting.”
(OWN)
The cast and creative team regrouped for a TCA press conference just as production was starting on Season 3. “This is my first season as an executive producer,” revealed Simone Missick, who also stars as Judge Lola Carmichael. “I get to see a lot more behind the scenes, especially the way that Dee is running the writers' room, but also the way that this creative process is coming along. And we've got a lot of our original crew, but we do have some new people changing our show just a little bit and bringing something fresh and new to OWN.”
Season 3 is set 6 months after the events of Season 2. “Emily took the opportunity to kind of reassess, re-approach her life, kind of look at it and ask herself where she was versus where she wanted to be, who she wanted to be, and what she needed to do in order to get there,” Jessica Camacho shared about her character. “She goes to Puerto Rico and takes off. And we find her kind of refreshed. We find her back reignited, renewed, with just a sense of purpose that is on fire and a new clarity and a new role with which to explore this new clarity and hopefully make change. She’s super inspired to bring her passion and her insight and her experience to the criminal justice system in a way that she really believes can change the system for better. So that is really powering her every move right now.”
“It's been one of the great pleasures for me doing this show and getting to explore that relationship,” Wilson Bethel shared, who plays Emily’s best friend Mark Callan. “Because we are not having to engage in the tropes of will they or won't they and the relationship dynamics that often drive these male-female relationships on TV, it means that we have a whole lot of time to explore different kinds of ways that relationships develop that are quite frankly I think more unique and interesting.”
Dee Harris Lawrence said that the theme of Season 3 is “new beginnings,” adding that it’s not just limited to Emily’s Puerto Rico refresh. “We’re going to have Luke Watkins, who was a prosecutor the second season, basically become a public defender and what happens with that when he does become a public defender when it comes to the DA’s office. Also, Mark Callan has a new role in the DA’s office that he’s going to be struggling with a little bit… Probably the biggest change out of everybody is Lindsay Mendez, who plays Sara Castillo, is going to become a victim's advocate who works out of the DA's office and will be working with Mark Callan. So we have all of these characters shifting in different ways, which allowed our writers' room to tell all these great various stories with Sara following a victim from the DA's side, as well as the PD dealing with their client at the same time. We're dealing with stories like consent. We're going to be dealing with a serial killer this season. And then we're going to be ushering in a new judge. Because what gets me excited about the show, what you don't normally get to see, you see some shows like Law & Order deal with the prosecutor and the public defender, but you don't often see what happens in the back rooms with the judges. So we're going to be including a new judge, Roger Guenveur Smith, we're so excited about coming on board.”
Season 3 of All Rise debuts tonight at 8/7c on OWN.