This week’s episode of Lethal Weapon sees the introduction of Michelle Hurd as new police chief Gina Santos, who is brought in to contain the madness and mayhem that is Detectives Riggs and Murtaugh.
Fans will likely recognize Michelle Hurd for various roles that she has played over the years, but prior to Lethal Weapon, she was last seen in Season 2 of Ash Vs The Evil Dead on Starz, in which she played Linda Bates Emery. She has also enjoyed a solid recurring role in Blindspot where she plays Shepherd.
Prior to that Hurd enjoyed a variety of roles across a wide spectrum of television genres. Between 2011 and 2013 she played Rachel Grey in the Beverly Hills 90210. After that, she nabbed a regular role in The Glades before being seen as Samantha Reyes in the second season of Daredevil.
In Lethal Weapon, Hurd’s character Gina Santos has been brought in to try and keep Riggs and Murtaugh in line, which will likely create a little more conflict and fun. As far as we know, she will not be a replacement for Kevin Rahm’s Captain Avery, but she will be his immediate superior.
The premiere episode sees Riggs and Murtaugh investigating the death of a plastic surgeon, which leads to them uncovering a drugs ring at a wellness clinic.
Just how Santos will be brought into the story remained to be seen at the time of writing, but having seen Hurd’s portrayal of Reyes in Daredevil, sparks are likely to fly given how good Hurd is at portraying strong female authority figures. We especially look forward to seeing how she will cope with Riggs’ devil-may-care attitude and his tendency to balk at authority figures.
In a recent interview describing Hurd’s character, Executive Producer Matt Miller said: “[Gina] comes into our world because Captain Avery has sort of lost control of these guys…we needed someone to play heavy.”
We’ll also learn that Hurd’s character of Santos has a prior history with Murtaugh due to something that happened in the past.
Miller added: “What we find out when she comes in is that Murtaugh is immediately freaked out by her presence because there was an incident many years ago…he explains to Riggs that they were on a stake-out late one night, they were in the car together, and ‘Dancing in September’ came on the radio. They both reached to turn the volume up, and their fingers hit and lingered.”
Obviously, this sort of awkwardness is going to lead to some pretty amusing situations and will likely give Riggs more ammunition with which to continue his usual routine of winding up Murtaugh in that playful way that we’ve enjoyed over the course of the series.
Lethal Weapon airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Fox.