Get Caught Up On Quantico With Marlee Matlin and Michael Seitzman

I will admit I hadn’t watched Quantico before now. But that’s okay, because Season 3 is just for us newbs in the game.

A three years have gone by, Alex (Priyanka Chopra), Ryan (Jake McLaughlin), and Shelby (Johanna Braddy) have moved on with their lives. Then Quantico calls Alex and Ryan back for new problems, new solutions, and new faces.

So it’s a reboot of sorts according to writer/producer Michael Seitzman. And a reboot means he could bring on brand new characters. Complex characters like Marlee Matlin’s Jocelyn Turner.

What was really wonderful about it for us in the writer’s room was to write a role for Marlee where we at times ignored the fact that she was deaf so that she’s just somebody who was in a car accident and with a relationship and a situation. And then at other times, we utilized her deafness to help us tell the story and to create a problem in the story and a solution in the story. 

-Michael Seitzman

Matlin is no stranger to complex characters. As an Oscar and Golden Globe winning actress she has dove into interesting characters that use her deafness to her advantage. Jocelyn Turner is no exception.

Her character touches on how she lost her hearing in the first episode of season 3. According to the script, Jocelyn is a trained and skilled sniper that has the unfortunate event of being too close to a bomb as it exploded, rupturing her eardrums and giving her a disadvantage, albeit temporary because Turner ends up being able to heighten her other senses and help solve problems, like where Shelby is when she is abducted. She sees things in seconds-long film that Shelby’s captors send that the other FBI agents missed, like a slight wave in a glass of water and how many windows there are in the industrial looking room.

He’s one of the few people in Hollywood who understands how to use someone like myself, who understands not to dwell on the disability, not to dwell, on the “dis” in ability, but to look at the ability. I could name other people, I mean people like Aaron Sorkin and David E. Kelley and Ilene Chaiken. These are people like Michael who understand where I can fit into a role without having to be a person who is deaf.

It just happens to be deaf, the positives as Michael just said. And this one was extremely unusual because playing FBI agent and dealing with the people in situations, dealing in crises, being a sniper, being someone who uses my eyes as a means and surveillance, where a lot of people who aren’t deaf don’t use as someone who does have the ability with my eyes.

– Marlee Matlin

As far as Marlee’s character is concerned, we will get to see more of her before she lost her hearing in the 6th episode of the season, so don’t miss that. This particular episode is something to be proud of.

Quantico airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC TV Network