Edrisa goes undercover with the NYPD when a body is found professionally preserved and embalmed during the Feb. 17 episode of Prodigal Son. This next case takes Edrisa and the team to a convention of funeral directors, which Keiko Agena calls Edrisa’s Disneyland. “Edrisa is over the moon because this case happens to deal with people in the death care arena or funeral directors,” Keiko told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY. “She actually gets out of the lab and off of the crime scene and into the field where she’s with the team as they pursue a killer. I will say that there are some very awkward moments that happen and some very, perhaps, heroic moments that happen, but it’s all pretty unexpected.”
Edrisa’s primary space is the lab, so the chance to get out for a bit and explore a case in a different way is a thrilling opportunity for the character. “I think she loves it. I think for her it’s an extension,” Keiko continued. “It’s not that she does not like the lab. She loves the lab. There’s nothing that makes Edrisa more content than solving puzzles of what a body is trying to tell her through what has happened to it.” However, Keiko noted that “there is a side of Edrisa that wants to be part of the gang” and we’ll see more of that in the episode. “She’s always trying to sort of crack jokes and fit in and be on the same page as everyone,” Keiko said. ” I think that’s something that she struggled with a lot and she values, so I think that that becomes more obvious when she’s in their environment and trying to do that to an even higher degree.”
Going undercover means Edrisa gets to work even more closely with Malcolm. Keiko said that Edrisa getting to spend a full day out in the field with Malcolm probably “makes her year.” As Edrisa works alongside Malcolm, Keiko teased that there are “some surprising things we learn about what motivates her.”
The Feb. 17 episode isn’t just a big one for Edrisa in terms of going undercover. This episode will begin to peel back the layers on the character. “I will say is that you do get information about her backstory, not in specifics but in emotion,” Keiko told HollywoodLife. “I think there are some very core truths and philosophies that will come out in this episode of how she feels and I hope that in a later episode we can sort of unravel the specifics of why that is.”
At the end of the last episode, Martin’s life was left hanging in the balance after Malcolm stabbed him. “By the end of the episode, you will have an answer one way or the other whether he lives or dies,” Keiko revealed. Prodigal Son airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on FOX.