But when Mark’s smile fades, watch out. Take, for instance, his post-karaoke moment with Louisa in Episode 5. After they nailed a duet of Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’,” she found Mark having a small emotional crisis in the Salty Breeze kitchen. Eventually, he admitted that he doesn’t understand why she called off their wedding and broke off their engagement, given that they share so many of the same interests, from Turkey Taco Tuesday to “Pretty Little Liars.”
“When you meet Mark, he’s 0% over her. And throughout this first season, we’ll definitely see him going through the stages of grief,” Josh Segarra previews. “We’ll see where they end up, but I’m sure that’s gonna be a part of him for a long time, as any heartbreak is.”
Anyone who watches the show knows that Season 1 is moving toward the moment that Mark realizes that Martin and Louisa are growing closer — a major blow to Mark, a blast for Segarra.
“That was some of the most fun I had this season, was playing the heartbreak of it all,” he says. “You’ll see that he finds out about what’s going on between them, and that’s just, how many different colors can one show how hurt they are?” He smiles. “Hopefully I knock out a few.”
Unfortunately for the sheriff (but fortunately for Segarra), Mark’s got a few more rough patches ahead. In the same episode that “Doc Martin” star Martin Clunes shows up as Martin’s father, Dr. Robert Best, Mark will get badly hurt. (Don’t worry, Sheriff Mylo stans, showrunner Liz Tuccillo assures us that “we’re gonna put him through some things, but he’s gonna come out OK.”)
Segarra says that his co-star Cree, who plays Martin’s social media-obsessed receptionist Elaine, read the script in question before he did. “She’s like, ‘Oh dude, you get really hurt,'” he recalls. “And I feel odd saying this, but it’s my girl, so I’m gonna say it because it was really sweet: She was like, ‘Josh, I cannot wait to see what you do.'”
Her sentiment “really stayed with me,” he continues. “Because when you have that confidence from others, it makes you go, all right, let’s paint. Let’s figure out how to do this. What’s the smallest way we can do this? What’s the biggest way we can do this? What’s a way that might be out of an episode of ‘The Sopranos’? What might be out of an episode of ‘Schitt’s Creek’? What are the different versions?”
He grins. “And then let’s send this off, and let’s see what happens.”
“Best Medicine” airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Fox.
