Graceland Boss on Season Finale: Briggs' Exit Fractures the House

Daniel Sunjata, Aaron Tveit | Photo Credits: Jeff Daly/USA Network
Daniel Sunjata, Aaron Tveit | Photo Credits: Jeff Daly/USA Network

All season long on Graceland, Mike (Aaron Tveit) has been harboring a dark secret from the rest of his housemates: He was assigned to the house to investigate Briggs (Daniel Sunjata). On Thursday's season finale (10/9c, USA), his secret is coming out.

"The entire season has been building to this," creator and showrunner Jeff Eastin tells TVGuide.com. "To be honest, we've already planned out the next couple of seasons, and a lot of that depends on the house finding out who Mike is right now."

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While some fans may have thought that Mike would go through much — if not all — of the series without revealing his true intentions to the group, Eastin says it was only a matter of time before the truth surfaced. "Briggs is smart. The idea that Mike would be able to hide his investigation from Briggs for more than a season always strained credibility a little bit," he says. "Just the nature of a house like that — where you have these people who are in incredibly tight confines, working in incredibly stressful situations — when you're in a situation like that, no matter what information seems to come out."

Now the task becomes finding Briggs, the de-facto house leader who ominously left Graceland at the end of the penultimate episode. Briggs' decision to skip town came just as Mike and the FBI were investigating his link to the disappearance of Mike's old boss, Juan (Pedro Pascal) and the tape Juan made on the night he died. In fact, it's that investigation through which Mike's true purpose is revealed.

"As now the FBI moves in to investigate, the roommates really learn everything," Eastin says. "Briggs' decision to leave will really fracture the house. As we approach the finale, the real question becomes: Can the house survive?"

However, if Mike and the rest of the bureau have it their way, Briggs' departure won't last long. "The focus shifts from finding the tape to finding Briggs," Eastin says. "What's really important is how finding Briggs ... really splits the roommates into two sides — those with Paul and those against him."

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In the wake of what Eastin calls a "critical event," even Briggs' most staunch supporters will start to question him. "Johnny is really the one that takes this the hardest because, he's always really idolized Briggs. It's completely destructive to him to learn that Briggs may be a murderer, that Briggs may be Odin. All these discoveries really beat at the heart of Johnny and really come close to destroying him," Eastin says. "On the other side, you have Charlie, who has been convinced that Briggs is Odin. It becomes validation for her."

However, it won't be all good news for Charlie (Vanessa Ferlito) in the finale, as she reaches a boiling point in her close working relationship with Cortez (Vincent Laresca), who unbeknownst to her is actually the killer Jangles. "Charlie's story really, really reaches a crescendo ... and the story of what happens with Jangles — that sort of becomes the big event in the finale," Eastin says. "Mentally for Charlie, she really goes on an emotional roller coaster, just being deluged with all this information that Mike was there as a rat, the discovery that Cortez is Jangles, and then there's a surprise at the end where she reaches a point where she doesn't think she can go on being an FBI agent."

Graceland's season finale airs Thursday at 10/9c on USA.