Arika Lisanne Talks ‘The Irrational’ Season 2 and Reflects on Alec Mercer’s Journey [Interview]

The Irrational Season 2 has become one of NBC’s most thrilling psychological crime dramas in the last few years. Though there are only a few episodes left, Season 2 was certainly an intense journey for Alec Mercer and his team.

I recently had the chance to talk with creator and executive producer Arika Lisanne about her work on The Irrational Season 2, collaborating with author Dan Ariely, and the challenges she overcame between Seasons 1 and 2.

Lisanne was first introduced to Ariely’s 2008 book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by executive producer Mark Goffman. The pieces for the pitch around The Irrational slowly fell into place for Lisanne after watching one of Ariely’s TED Talks that really inspired her own vision.

“Mark [Goffman] sent me the book and he sent me one of Dan’s TED Talks, and that was what reeled me in,” Lisanne said. “I was like, ‘Oh, these are really interesting things about human behavior that we all do that I’ve never thought about.’ I really think there could be a show there. So, the TED Talk reeled me in, and then I read the book.”

Furthermore, Lisanne also detailed how Ariely’s ideas really helped her form her approach. “The book doesn’t immediately present itself with any kind of narrative, so it’s not a super easy thing to adapt,” Lisanne said.

“The ideas presented really felt like they could contribute to some kind of television procedural where cases are solved using all of these principles of behavior.”

Given how Dan Ariely’s works are non-fiction, it would have been difficult to translate those scientific observations into a fictionalized format. However, when discussing this transition, Lisanne brought up the many ways that The Irrational forms its episodes around those ideas.

“It depends on the episode. Some episodes, we start with the experiments or the bias [and] the principle,” Lisanne said. “But others, we start with, ‘What if this kind of person went missing?’ We start with the irrational questions and go from there.”

“In [The Irrational Season 2 Episode 2], we talked about the way our minds don’t always see what you think you’re seeing and how your mind plays tricks on you,” she added. “The way witnesses are unreliable was the delicate thing to me. We had to find a way to figure out how to make witness unreliability to better have a case.”

Ariely was also featured on-screen on The Irrational Season 2 in a small appearance. However, he has mostly served as a consultant on the show and provided integral insight about his own approach.

“We’ll come up with a concept that we wanna know about, and he’ll tell us what he would do, how he would experiment for that,” Lisanne said.

She added that he keeps them honest by pointing out details such as how many people have to be in a group, needing a control group, etc. “He’s very good at helping us with that aspect of the show, and that’s how we keep our authenticity on that front,” she explained.

Though there was some time between the productions of The Irrational Season 1 and Season 2, Lisanne recalled an important piece of advice that she was given during downtime. As such, it may have played a larger role in the creative format of The Irrational Season 2.

“I would say, going in from Season 1 into Season 2, the biggest suggestion I got was to lean it to the case of the week more than the serialized history,” Lisanne recalled.

“For some, it was hard to keep track of because we do these big case of the week stories. And then, we had this element of the mystery of Alec’s past running through,” Lisanne noted. “It has really served as a way of informing his character and teaching the audience about this new character over the course of those 11 episodes.” 

Lisanne also brought up how Season 1’s challenge was dealing with past mysteries, which required frequent backward storytelling. In contrast, Season 2 focuses on present-day cases and characters’ subplots, avoiding constant references to the past.

While Alec Mercer has had gradual development with his mission, his companions, Rizwan Asadi and Phoebe Duncan, have been further developed. As they become more involved in The Irrational Season 2, Lisanne said that they’ll have much to face.

“I mean, from where you saw them start out at the beginning of Season 1, we called Phoebe Hermione! We joked that she was kind of overachieving,” Lisanne said. “As a result of that conscience and that constant push for achievement, it got in the way of some of the other things she wanted, as did her anxiety disorder.”

“She came into this season really actively dealing with her anxiety,” Lisanne added. “She thought she could by moving locations, she would be with that. But having a less stress-inducing job would make her less anxious.”

“She had to realize over the course of that, ‘Wherever you go, there you are,'” she explained. “That was Phoebe’s big realization for the beginning half of this season. I think she’s really evolved as she goes into the back half of Season 2.”

On the other hand, Rizwan’s development is much more different: “Rizwan is kind of the stumbling newbie at the beginning of last season, and now, he’s really come into his own,” Lisanne said. “He’s got his own relationship with Alec. They both do. And maybe he’s always had a really strong relationship with Alex.”

“We have an episode rather that deals with Phoebe’s past a bit, and her dynamic with Alec is front and center in that episode.”

“The kids are dynamic, with Alec, with Phoebe, and with their new research assistant, Simon. So, all three of them are going to have to figure out a new dynamic and a way of working together.”

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New episodes of The Irrational air Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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