‘Transplant’ Boss on Exploring June’s Blind Spot & Making Her Vulnerable

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Transplant Season 3 Episode 5 “Nadir.”]

So far in Season 3 of Transplant, we’ve seen June (Ayisha Issa) figuring out how to balance work and caring for and about Shay (Gina James), her stepsister now living with her. She’s also had a few challenges at work, including dealing with Novak (Gord Rand) and the emergency department’s new boss, Devi (Rekha Sharma).

In the latest episode, June grows concerned when Shay is MIA. It turns out that she went camping with a friend, and as she tells June when she pops back up, she even left a note at home for her. Although June tries to pass it off as though her only concern is that it is affecting her work, Shay can tell she actually cares about her. Meanwhile, Novak encourages June to complain about him to Devi to make her her friend to use whatever they have to in order to build the trauma OR they want.

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“June is a person for us who’s always identifying her blind spots and then going out and seeking to fix them, which is a way that we’re constantly fascinated by the character,” creator Joseph Kay tells TV Insider. “And one of the blind spots that June identifies is that she wishes she was more vulnerable or she wishes she was better with emotion. She wishes all that stuff. And so by taking on Shay, kind of a stepsister who’s a bit hard to take on, and getting involved with Novak — June isn’t good with patients. Novak really is much worse. And so June’s put in the position where she has to be the one to deal with people’s difficult emotional problems, which is really a blind spot for her. She’s out there constantly challenging herself and constantly trying to tackle the things that she needs to tackle.”

As Kay reminds us, when June was first introduced at the beginning of the series, she was “a pretty guarded person.” “But the more that we get to know her, the more vulnerable she’s become and the more open she’s become. And it leads to some real vulnerability that lets us get underneath her in ways that we really like.”

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While it’s been interesting to watch the strong working relationship develop between June and Novak (whom Kay aptly describes as “challenging”), fans can also look forward to more between June and Mags (Laurence Leboeuf). “We also see [them] kind of mold this really warm friendship where they have over time become closer,” says the creator. “They’re two people who kind of started off a little bit competing for their status at work, and we’re tracking that relationship with the two of them, too.”

That plays into the series in general. “We see everybody challenged by their choices but sort of fumbling to find themselves, I would say,” Kay adds.

Transplant, Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC