Regina Taylor's The Unit Blog

Angel Wainwright plays Betsy, Jonas and Molly Blane's strong-willed daughter. "She's a fighter," Angel declares. "A young woman who has a deep need to be something. She admires her father deeply. Admires his strength. But her mother..." Here Angel hesitates, perhaps because she's talking to the person who plays her mother. Then, carefully: "She misunderstands her mother. She doesn't relate to Molly's strength. Doesn't appreciate her mother's accomplishments. Doesn't want to be like her."

There is definitely a mother-daughter conflict in the Blane household. Molly, seeing how much her daughter is like her — both are hardheaded — wants to protect her daughter from the mistakes she's made. Wants her child to skip over the tough experiences. Wants her to avoid the pain that life brings. If only her child would listen to her. Molly knows that her daughter has to experience life for herself on her own terms, that it's the good and bad episodes in life that build character, hopefully making you stronger. But out of her own willfulness, born out of protective passion, Molly sometimes pushes Betsy to hear her.

"Pushing makes Betsy more determined," says Angel. Her big brown eyes sparkle mischievously. "Nothing motivates like opposition."

A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Angel shares common ground with her role.
"I'm a fighter. I used to get into fights a lot when I was young at school. My little brother had a big mouth. I had to step in for him a lot. And we were poor. We couldn't afford $400 tennis shoes. Those who pretended not to be poor and wore those $400 tennis shoes would pick on me."

"People would say I'm like my parents. If you recognize, if you can see how alike you are, you can see yourself and maybe better navigate to avoid your parents' mistakes and try to honor their positive qualities." At the age of 25, Angel admits, "I don't think I'm like them at all." Though both were artists. "My father was a model and aspiring actor. He now teaches high school. My mother is a domestic diva and head of the neighborhood association. When I was 12 I found my mother's writings in a box. I thought, 'Wow! This is really good. I wonder why she didn't do anything with her work.' My mother taught me to write books when I was little. She encouraged me to do creative work. I loved poetry. She got me to go to the Baltimore School of Arts. Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupak went there. When I auditioned for entrance into the school I had to do a monologue or a poem. I didn't even know what a monologue was. I was determined to learn once I got there. That was my intro into acting and the world of theater."

Angel worked hard, excelled and was accepted into SUNY Purchase in New York, where she met her husband, Ali, at a school forum to discuss current events. "He was poignant and articulate.... He has a wonderful vocabulary. He loves the planet and human beings. He inspired me — and I guess I impressed him, too." They are a striking couple. Both share high cheekbones, expansive eyes and ideals.

"It is a continuing struggle for consciousness," says Angel. "I want my art to produce consciousness. I'd like to see cultural progress through creative means. TV, books, movies don't have to numb and dumb people out."

In 2005 Angel graduated SUNY and married her "best friend and first real love," Ali, in a civil ceremony at City Hall in New York. And though "we didn't think it necessary for people to come to the ceremony," her parents determinedly drove in from Baltimore to witness the marriage. "We had to go through a metal detector and people in handcuffs waiting for their trial waved at us and shouted encouragement."

That same year Angel received her big acting break. She was in New York working in a small sweatshop of a medical office ("12 people shoulder to shoulder" for a company that translated X-rays and MRIs). It was here that she got a call from a manager about an audition in L.A. On that trip she met the casting agent for The Unit, Sharon Bialy, and landed the role of Betsy Blane. She bunked out and slept on a friend's sofa while filming her first episode.

The couple has since moved to L.A. While she hates "the parking, the driving... anything to do with traffic," she loves the living space. "We couldn't afford a two-bedroom apartment in New York." Earning a living is still a struggle but they get by. Angel has recurring roles on General Hospital: Night Shift and General Hospital. Ali works with adults with developmental disabilities.

Angel's grandpa and all his brothers were merchant marines. Her great-grandpa was a Blackfoot Indian. Refusing to live on a reservation, he lived just outside the reservation on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He was a Wainwright. He made wheels and owned his own taxi service. Angel's great-grandma was a newly freed African-American who moved to Virginia to teach. Getting off the train, she hailed a ride. Mr. Wainwright picked her up. He was 65. She was 20. He encouraged their sons to become merchant marines. Having lost the land, he taught that they could gain freedom by seeing the world. Angel says that her mother put all her dreams into the hope that her children could have a better life: "I think in some ways I've fulfilled her dreams."

Angel Wainwright is excited to see where the continuing storyline of Betsy Blane takes her as she follows in her father's footsteps and, against her mother's wishes, joins the army.



CBS' The Unit airs Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET.

I had forgotten that the hair/makeup trailer is such a crossroads until my cousin Phillip flew back to L.A. with me from Dallas. Raising three daughters — he separated from their mother because he "always had his eyes open for what might be around the corner" — and orphaned at the age of 14, he's a devoted father, saving for his three daughters' futures. He gets up in the morning at 5:30 am, seven days a week, to take a bus to his job at a milk plant. He'd like to buy a house one day where all his girls can have their own rooms — "Even after they're grown they can live with their dad." He stresses education and is ever-protective of his girls — always gives them the practical advice, like, "Don't let the boys talk you out of your panties." Phillip has muscle-bound arms and the sweet smile of a teenager that belies the fact that he is about to hit 40. He takes two weeks off every year but never really goes anywhere. Wanting to do something for himself for a change and "live a little," this is his first real vacation in seven years. He wants to see "the pretty L.A. women" and the ocean and visit his cousin on the set of The Unit.

Days on the set average about 12 to 15 hours. My call for the day is six hours into the shooting day and we head to the Santa Clarita studios around 5:30 pm. My one scene for the day is a night scene in a parking lot with Audrey and Abbey. We are first put through the works in the hair-and-makeup trailer. I introduce makeup — Martha Cecilia, head of the department, who also is a wonder at special effects. All the blood and gore of the show (scars, bullet holes, severed bodies...) is created by this petite woman with hair down to her hips.

Also on the makeup team is Siobhan, from Ireland, who is given to joking about American culture, such as the malicious deception of chicken-fried steak. ("Where's the chicken?" she declares in her thick brogue.)

Miss Kelly wears a short fusia-colored bob and is partial to pink and purple. She hits it off with Cousin Phil as I overhear her trying to hijack him to the "hood": "I know Regina hasn't taken you to the hood. Give me a call."

Erma, who does my hair, has just come back from medical leave. She doesn't like to stand still — was going stir-crazy recuperating at home — so she's back within the month because she feels doing what she loves is the best cure. Always firm and mothering, I've missed the soft patter of her voice and her large warm eyes. Phillip embraces her immediately — "She reminds me of somebody... I can't yet place." Erma never met a stranger and is familiar to everyone she meets.

It is in hair and makeup where we first get into our characters and meet guest actors, run lines, and share gossip and life aspirations. Various folks from set construction to electricians to camera operators, writers and producers pass through to get a cut and to chat.

Abbey and her tattooed blues-musician husband are buying their first house outside of Pasadena. She shares pictures of this dream cottage. It is here Audrey revealed the exquisitely delicate art-deco rock on her finger.
"He finally did the right thing," she clucks. Audrey — round-bellied at six months — waddles over so that we can get a closer look. She's beaming — with love for her fiancé and the baby kicking inside. We discuss that she's carrying low. "He's moving a lot now." She's eating for two and sleeping well. Erma, who has two grown sons, advises that if she breast-feeds, she will feel her tummy pull up and grow tight. "I had two sons I breast-fed and I'm tight. Still tight," says tiny 50-plus grandma Erma. Audrey offers that I poke her newly acquired outie belly button. I gently put my head to her belly: "Oh! I can hear him. He said, 'I wuv you mommy!'" I swear those are his first words. Audrey throws her head back and laughs.

Michael [Irby] bounds in with his usual high energy to let Martha swab him down with more blood as she touches up the bullet hole in his side. The always cool and collected Demore [Barnes] needs more sprayed-on sweat. Phillip follows the smell of sulfur to Studio 7 where the guys are doing a shootout. Demore, Max [Martini] and Dennis [Haysbert] are running up and down stairs with guns, making "pop-pop-blam!" sounds in rehearsal that turn into heartfelt blasts when the cameras roll. I leave Phillip there in heaven for the next four hours. Go back to hair-makeup then get completely changed and review my scene.

Hours later I find Phillip back in the hair-makeup trailer, smiling like the Cheshire cat, chewing the fat with Dennis. Dennis is in the chair getting tightened up in the back by his barber Michael (who plays in a jazz band on the side). This is the joint to get some pampering, kick back, laugh, have some fresh-brewed special-blend coffee and listen to music. Maybe even dance.

They get to our scene after dark in the back parking lot. A solo extra walks through bracing himself to the night chill. We finish around midnight. "I could have done that," Phillip says as we wrap. Meaning he could have played the extra. He's amazed at how many components there are behind the scenes. Extras, stand-ins, master carpenters, cameramen, focus pullers, stunt coordinators, accountants, assistant directors, costumers, drivers.... Phillip, an outgoing guy, has taken a lot of pictures and met a lot of new friends.

During his stay I take him around to the various sights of L.A. — the Hollywood sign, through Rodeo Drive, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, Bishop Blake's West Los Angeles Church, Santa Monica — to Venice Beach.

Staring in awe out at the ocean, Phillip asks, "What's on the other side?"


CBS' The Unit airs Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET.

We wrapped shooting in April. We then had two-and-a-half months off. We actors go our separate ways to discover ourselves in different roles.

Michael Irby headed off to New Orleans to shoot a jazz movie featuring Wynton Marsalis. Demore Barnes went back home to Canada and worked on his own film project. Abby Brammell traveled to Bangkok, where her tattooed blues-singing husband was making his acting premiere in a Sylvester Stallone movie.
I returned to Dallas to start a home-renovation project. My aunt Virginia currently lives in the atomic ranch-style house as I go back and forth to L.A. I'm moving in another aunt who has a disabled daughter by the end of the year and wanted to make the home wheelchair accessible — ramps, wider doors, a new bathroom — so I find a contractor who says they can knock the job out in three weeks. In my mind I tack on a couple of extra weeks, thinking I'll still have plenty of time to sit on a beach in Tahiti during the remaining hiatus and "renew."

I use my time in Dallas during the renovation to reconnect with family and to finally go through my mother's belongings — her paintings, dress patterns of clothes she designed, her writings, her baptismal scarf... things she held on to. As I am excavating, I discover things that I never knew about her when she was alive. Secret desires and fears are uncovered in the sifting through of things that remain. As I grow older I am always surprised in how I am growing more and more like her. Or I am in less denial — it is an ongoing dialogue between mother and daughter that continues to evolve. Weeding through my own things to clear some space for my Aunt Rose and her daughter Rosalind, I find myself reconnecting with myself at different stages in my life. College photos to elementary finger paintings, high school report cards. I even find "Gigi." My mother, wanting me to have a doll that looked like myself, couldn't find any brown-skinned dolls in the stores. She made a brown rag doll — I named her "Reggie Gianni" when I was 6. As an adult holding Gigi, I try to find the child she was made for.

The two-and-a-half months pass too fast. The contractors who claimed in their ad that they would do it for me has done it to me. They are still — months later, to this day — working on this three-week renovation project. I don't get to travel to the mystical island of Tahiti but I'm grateful to have time-traveled through ancient remains in Dallas. I head back to L.A. stripped down and freshly varnished, clearer from this trip.

We come back to the Santa Clarita Studios. Scott Foley returns glowing — newly married. Audrey comes back glowing, newly pregnant. Dennis Haysbert returns shining — bald and lean having dropped over 20 pounds. He comes back ready to kick some butt as Jonas Blane.

I am at the series-premiere party last Tuesday with a rowdy group of cast members, crew, staff and friends, at Rick-the-editor's great '70s tri-level house in Granada Hills. The Unit is back (minus our rocking theme song), tight, fast and powerful as ever. We're gathered around holding camouflage plates of food and drinks talking back to the action on the 64-inch screen. The ladies all swoon out loud whenever Jonas appears.

Rick-the-editor's house is very eclectic. Walls are filled with photos and objects from various projects and travels. Rick is a baseball fan. An extensive baseball collection sits encased off the playroom on the second level. In the dining room Rick's wife has a photo of a beautiful swan-necked woman, a distant relative who wrote Imitation of Life. Written in the '30s, it was twice made into movies in Hollywood. I tell her it was one of my favorite movies growing up. They'd play this movie every summer in Dallas and we'd all gather around my grandmother's 24-inch black-and-white TV, talking back to this melodrama about a tragic light-complectioned mulatto denying her own identity until her large, dark-skinned mother dies. At the funeral Mahalia Jackson sings, "Soon We'll Be Done with the Troubles of this World." The daughter breaks down and finally claims her mother and her past. Folks around the TV would be shaking their heads and tsking — "Umph, too late." The movie made us laugh and weep.

Every time we would see a black face on the black-and-white everyone would call everyone they knew. Everyone would gather in front of whoever's TV and put our faces close to watch — Sidney Poitier films, Bill Cosby in I Spy, Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek, the secretary on Mannix. And oh yes, Di: Diahann Carroll. We were so proud to see them — to see reflections of ourselves. Usually they were single individuals. We saw little or nothing about their families or their communities. Their characters and plotlines had little or no mention of race. But we understood the underpinning message of their presence in the times we were living through. They played human beings in human situations with which everyone could identify.

Forty years later, Jonas Blane is the only black lead in a drama on national television. Jonas and Molly Blane are the only black couple in a drama on national TV. The Unit is not about race. It tells the story of human beings under stressful situations dealing as human beings. Their characters are universal and black.

I find myself in the role of Molly Blane, a character that when I was a child I could not have imagined to have existed on TV.

I try to instill in Molly the characteristics of those who raised me and helped to shape my life. Those strong, resolute, regular colored women who sometimes found themselves humanly fragile and very extraordinary in the face of life's storms. I try to keep her humanity shining through for anyone who presses close to the screen searching for recognition. Stepping into this new season... I look forward to the journeys.

I've been traveling the last week and a half from L.A. to Dallas to Atlanta and back. Still working off little sleep, I find myself daydreaming. I used to walk and talk in my sleep when I was a child. Would wake up and find myself out of my bed, down the stairs in the living room on my rocking horse, or other places. I've done it a couple of times as an adult, had conversations with friends on the phone that I don't recall and waking up in a different room. I wake up slightly disconnected for the rest of the day. Having roamed while asleep, I then dream while I'm awake. I associate travel with dreaming. Fall into a reverie on trains and planes. When I come to, I'm in another city, another time zone, and sometimes feeling that no time or space has passed at all.

I was in Atlanta last Tuesday when CBS aired The Unit's double-header evening of "Sub-Conscious" and "Johnny B Good."

"Sub-Conscious," written by Daniel Voll, explores the dreams of unit wife Kim Brown (played by Audrey Marie Anderson). Voll presents surreal settings of Kim on the submarine where the unit's men are on a mission. She relays those dreams to Molly and Tiffy, and is overheard. Somehow parts of Kim's dream intersect with details of the unit's mission in North Korea. Kim is questioned by a psychiatrist — played by Linda Hunt — to determine if her husband has breached security in passing on secret information, or if she's channeling her husband's sub-conscious fears as she sleeps. When Unit wives lay their heads on their pillows at night next to husbands who have been trained not to talk in their sleep, to safeguard their secrets, do those wives sometimes intuit what's on their husbands minds? Linda Hunt's character offers, "Did you ever have an unexplained premonition? Of course you have. 'Something told me... to get off the plane.' You haven't thought about Aunt Marge in five years, and the phone rings.... Have you ever at the same time uttered the same thought as your husband? After an hour of silence?" Both Kim's and Bob's fears for the men away on the submarine mission come bubbling to the surface through Kim's dreams.

Voll consciously plots that Kim's dream may have been triggered by her watching a movie starring Gregory Peck. Voll's wife is Peck's daughter. Cecilia Peck co-directed (with Barbara Kopple) the documentary Shut Up & Sing, about the female country band The Dixie Chicks. The film follows the fallout of Dixie Chick Natalie Maines' offhanded comment about President George W. Bush around the onset of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As radio stations are censoring the band across the country, they find the courage to change their tune, if not recant. In the process they find their own voice — a stronger voice than before. Oh, and Don Rickles — playing himself — is in Kim's dream.

We shot the funeral dream sequence in the dusty cold hills of Santa Clarita. Everyone is dressed in black. There's a band playing New Orleans ragtime music. Don Rickles is dressed as a priest. During takes, Dennis Haysbert, Max Martini (Mack) and Michael Irby (Charles) lie dead-still in their coffins. Inbetween takes, the band continues to swing and the guys play like dancing zombies. Mr. Rickles has cast and crew rolling, riffing on anyone who passes near.

There is a roster of directors who come in for each episode. "Johnny B. Good" is directed by our own co-executive producer, Vahan Moosekian. Moosekian feels that while it's difficult to wear both hats, the advantage is that you have more insight. You know the actors, you know the crew, and that makes the job easier.

A hard part in this shoot for him was the sheep. A herd of sheep block the roadway in a scene set in Afghanistan, but shot in the Santa Clarita Mountains. "The sheep kept running away. Herders would have to round them up," he says. Moosekian enjoyed most directing the Mack/Tiffy relationship.

Abigail Brammell (Tiffy) says, "Max and I had some great scenes where we really dig in. One take in particular totally caught me off guard. We really wanted to bring out the pain that has been boiling up to the surface in this marriage, but we debated about how emotional we should go with it. I was voting to embrace the drama, for Mack to crack in front of his wife. How else can we begin to heal the relationship?" Max was "excited to show Mack as both the hardened soldier, and also a very real human being."

Mack has to make hard decisions on this mission to Iran where one thing after another goes wrong. He comes back like one walking and wounded, afraid he is losing parts of himself and looking for trouble to ease his pain. He finds trouble in the arms of Crystal, who is avoiding Jeremy, her fiance who has returned home faceless, maimed, among the war casualties.

"The Water is Wide" (airing Feb. 13) is directed by our own director of photography, Krishna Rao. He also feels the advantage of working with this crew everyday. There is a shorthand established between himself and the crew that allows a fluidity, that frees him to give his mind fully to filling his role of director. His episode has the team racing time to detonate a bomb delivered in a birthday cake, and takes Molly and Tiffy to Vietnam in search of a missing vet. Like Mossekian, a former actor, Rao is sure about the shots he wants, and engages easily with the actors, drawing out specific nuances from characters who have become like family. A long distance bicyclist, Rao is enjoying this ride.

We shoot Vietnam in the foothills of Santa Clarita, and the set looks just like Vietnam. I went there on a cultural tour about six years ago, traveled from Ho-Chi-Min City along the coast up to Myrnmar. Daydreaming along the way. I go back in time for a moment, but it's way too cold in these foothills on this day. Unbelievably, it begins to snow in sunny Southern California.

Shirley Knight (Grandma's Boy) plays the mother who asks Molly to find her son. She's searching for peace — is he MIA, POW, or dead? Not knowing haunts her waking dreams. A nightmare.

CBS' The Unit airs Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET.

CBS' The Unit is back from holiday hiatus with a new episode [airing this Tuesday at 9 pm/ET]. In "The Broom Cupboard," the unit is assigned to protect a Texas senator who is touring in a hostile country. And Jonas is given a secret assignment by the president, played by William H. Macy, while Molly, Kim and Tiffy plan a surprise for Crystal.

I spent the holidays back in Dallas. I love taking long walks every day through my neighborhood. Rolling hills and wide open sky. I think that limitless horizon inspires a body to dream — I can’t help but to wander off on your own way. I remember as a child catching hell a few times for being a little “off the beaten track,” but I got Texas grit in my veins.... I kept stepping. Sometimes you have to make your own individual path.

Audrey Marie “Hepburn” Anderson knows about that sky. She’s another fellow Texan from Fort Worth. Audrey is eclectic. An inventive cook and a great photographer, she makes her own funky-looking clothes, likes all sorts of music and movies, and she does a good beat box and raps old-school and new. Texas grit — she can stand her own ground. Her father, a laborer all his life, recently broke his back, but it took several months for him to realize it.... He just kept moving through. That’s the stock from which she comes.

Summer Glau knows, too. San Antonio. She remembers living in a trailer park on her way to her dream of becoming a premier ballerina. A severe injury put her on her path to acting in L.A. Her first break was on the series Angel, and she played the character of River on Firefly. In The Unit, Summer is Crystal Burns, the girlfriend of Jeremy (Daniel Wisler) who Molly recruits to a private security missions overseas.

Audrey’s partner owns a great L.A. restaurant called Dominick's, just down from the Beverly Center. Daniel works there as a waiter in the in-betweens. Walk straight through to the back of the restaurant and there’s a tranquil patio with a fireplace. The cast broke bread together there before the holidays. It’s rare for the whole cast to be in the same room — we’re always on separate missions on the set. Everyone enjoys each others' company when we do get together. Good to see that everybody made it. The brown and beautiful Demore Barnes stopped by for a while. He was on his way to a holiday meal with his girlfriend’s parents. Demore used to be shy until he stepped on stage on a dare at Sir Oliver Mowat High School in Toronto, Canada. From there he became a stand-up comedian before taking the next step into acting. He can do uncanny impressions of anyone in the room.

I like seeing everyone and their partners on this rare occasion. Same time last year, I brought a blind date. This year I came by myself without any apologies. Felt good. I’m in a fully committed relationship with myself. Though we do fall out every once in a while.

William H. Macy of Fargo fame met David Mamet while both were at Goddard College. After graduation, he and Mamet and others founded a theater company together in Chicago, Illinois. The beginning of a long, committed relationship of collaborations over the years. Macy originated roles in a number of Mamet plays — American Buffalo to Oleana — and movies written and/or directed by Mamet (House of Games to State and Main. William H. Macy has been married to (non-)Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman since 1997. Their portmanteau couple nickname is “Filliam H. Muffman.”

This past week, The Unit, Dennis Haysbert and myself were nominated for NAACP Image Awards. It’s the beginning of a blessed year for which I am truly grateful.

"Silver Star," the episode of The Unit [Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET, on CBS] that airs Dec. 12, has Jonas and Molly going home to Jonas' parents. The occasion is Jonas' father finally being awarded the Silver Star for his heroic actions in Korea. While at the family gathering, Jonas' nephew — a soldier recently returned from combat and suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder — acts cowardly in beating his pregnant wife. Jonas steps in with some rough justice and tough love. In the process, he shares his dad's story, taking us back to the hero who did not receive a hero's welcome, as Jonas' father, a colored man in uniform, travels with his son down south in the US of A, 1952.

At the TOC, Mac tries to help a mysterious passenger (Ed O'Neill) on a private jet in restricted airspace, who is trying to land the plane after the pilot dies at the control board.

The Jump
This past month, Michael Irby, Robert Patrick and Scott Foley jumped with the U.S. Army parachute team, Tthe Golden Knights, from 13,500 feet. I want to know if anyone had second thoughts or lost any bodily functions on the way down. The guys respond with enthusiastic bravado that they had no fear. Michael with his thick black tangle of hair and coals for eyes says that it was "great" — like flying. It's a tandem jump with the neophytes harnessed to the experienced Golden Knights. Scott says that he was relaxed on the way down. He says that it was trusting his partner that allowed him to enjoy the ride. All of the cast had been invited to jump. The Maxter/MacDaddy/Mad Max Martini who is usually down for most everything didn't go up. "Done it," he says with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Used to work out of a drop zone called Sky's the Limit in upstate New York. I started packing parachutes and was trying to get enough jumps together to get my tandem instructor license. Almost got there but was summoned by the biz. Lived with my dog, Mona, in a 1972 Dodge Sportsman camper van behind the hanger at the airport along with the rest of the adrenaline junkies. Good times." When I'm asked why I didn't go, I tell 'em that in my life I've jumped out of enough airplanes — metaphorically. Done it. Know how it feels. The rush of the fall, then suspended in mid-air, flying, slowly descending and then the gratefulness of touching ground.

Scott is about to take another fearless trusting tandem jump. Falling in love, he has finally proposed to his beautiful Marika Dominczyk — now ready to jump the broom.

Gumbo Love
Gumbo is an aromatic stew. It's a Louisiana Creole mix of African, American Indian and European. Gumbo is the African Bantu word for okra — the vegetable that gives the dish its body. It starts with a simple roux, fat and flour, slowly browned over low heat. The ingredients are layered in and are varied. Add to the pot onions and various vegetables, hot chilies and various herbs and spices, then usually shrimp, then throw in some crab, oysters and or chicken, rabbit, pork or any variation of the above. What goes into the pot is determined according to your own taste. It's spooned over a bowl of rice to absorb the juices and to temper the spiciness of the dish. Made with love, the longer it simmers the more complex and better it gets.

I figure Molly and Jonas have been married and simmering for over 20 years. Their juices have combined — thick as blood, now. And blood goes deep. Family is deep and complicated and rich.

Home Is Where the Heart Is
We shot the Jonas' family scenes in the West Adams district of Los Angeles. Most of the homes there were built between 1880 and 1925, and the district boasts of the largest collections of historic homes west of the Mississippi River with architectural styles that include Queen Ann, Gothic Revival, Spanish Revival and Neoclassical. This one is a warm Craftsman. Hand-carved dark wood. Rich-hued wallpaper. There is a swing on the front porch. The tree from which I was gifted with my first persimmons grows through the back porch. The owners are like their house — carved of warm, dark wood. They have lived here since the early '60s.

When the West Side and Hollywood opened up for development in the 1920s, upper-class whites moved out and upper-class blacks moved in. West Adams was very popular with black celebrities in the '40s and '50s. Hattie McDaniel to Joe Louis to Ray Charles lived here. Today the district is racially diverse, with more white families moving back.

Films and TV shows such as The Shield, Monk and CSI often use the West Adams district. The house we filmed in was also used as the home of Morgan Freeman's character in Along Came a Spider.

It is here that we see Molly and Jonas' daughter (Angel Wainwright), as well as Jonas' father (Willie Carpenter) and mother (Emily Yancy). I talked to the actors about their connection to their characters. Willie Carpenter remembers some dark moments growing up in Bessemer, Alabama, but says, "We try to put that behind us." Emily Yancy understands the maternal instincts of her character in "wanting to hold your child close." "Whether the child is 5 or 50, the instinct to protect never stops." Angel has two brothers in the service, and her aunt, who served in the Gulf War, has a son who served in Iraq. "Someone strapped a bomb to a 7-year-old," one recounted about having to kill the child. "Killed the boy and killed myself." All returned home with post-traumaric-stress disorder. Angel says that she wishes we took better care of our returning vets.

All Heart
Dennis Dexter Haysbert is the eighth of nine children. He states, "The eighth child is a lucky child." Born with a hole in his heart, his mother — all heart when it came to her eighth baby — protected him but didn't smother him. As he grew up he grew stronger. She knew that she'd have to let him go — to fall in order to fly. When she finally let him play rough-and-tumble in sports, she did so on the condition that he also take an interest in the arts. By high school he was defensive end in football, ran track and played basketball while at the same time performing Shakespeare and lifting the girls in dance classes. Today, Dennis is, at a solid 6-foot-4, fully embodying the role of Jonas Blane. He also gives generously of his time and efforts to causes such as AIDS, education and the environment, about which he's very passionate. Whether being a good dad to his two children or embracing his acting roles, he throws himself wholeheartedly into everything he does.

In The Unit episode "Bait," which airs Nov. 28, Jonas is bound and thrown into a room with a bag over his head, and his captors are about to draw his last blood. He proves himself to be Houdini, however, by persuading them that he's more valuable to them alive than dead. Houdini, master of illusion and escape — we never know who's the rabbit and who's the fox. Jonas manipulates his captors to have them videotape him with their terms of release. As he reads their demands, he secretly signals to his comrades back home. He pulls more than one rascally rabbit out of his hat in order to escape, only to be captured and returned, bound and tortured. Meanwhile, Washington suits aren't interested in negotiations, so Colonel Ryan has to perform his own sleight of hand — before our Houdini runs out of rabbits.

On the home front, Colonel Ryan's wife, Charlotte, who was shot at the end of last season's finale, is now hooked on pain meds. Driving under the influence, she wrecks another woman's car, sending that woman to the hospital. Who should go to prison? Tiffy, trying to protect Charlotte, confesses to the crime. Bound by a lie, Tiffy faces jail time while her husband Mac is called away to save Jonas, just when she needs him most.

On the Set
This is the first television script Randy "Huggy Bear" Huggins has written. He's excited about being a part of the process, from writing, to filming his script, to air. He drops by to introduce his mother to the set. She has flown in from Detroit. She's a fiftyish, attractive, lean, brown-skinned woman in a black tracksuit trimmed in red. She's proud of her son for writing this tough and brutal episode. As we're introduced, she gives me a warm embrace. I understand better now, though I have always known where Randy got his nickname.

In between takes, Abby Brammell (Tiffy) sometimes shadowboxes. Born in Kentucky, reared in San Antonio, her tongue holds onto its Texas twang. She likes testing the limits of mind and body. She's been known to go on silent meditative retreats in the wilderness. Long-limbed, sinewy and strong, she fires fast jabs — mixing her punches — eyes focused on an imaginary foe. A crew member warns her that she keeps leaving herself open. Boxing is her newfound passion. Her trainer has sparred lightly with her. She's working hard building up to when she can take and give her first real and solid hits. When she finally comes to rest, she smiles ear to ear. She's ready for her close-up.

When Tiffy's husband leaves her while she's most vulnerable — to go to the aid of Jonas — watching Abby's face is like watching a knockout, though she refuses to fall. Unit wives are expected to roll with the punches.

Rebecca Pidgeon — who plays the colonel's wife (and who is David Mamet's wife in real life, as well as a noted jazz/folk singer-songwriter) — penned, in "Crimefighter":

"Superhero though the moon may shine/ You leave this loving heart on a dime/Gotham city's a safer place/But your treatment of this lady's a damn disgrace"

Could be the tune playing in Tiffy's head.

There's a scene in which Colonel Ryan (Robert Patrick) has the task of telling Molly that her husband's been captured. Molly finds it hard to roll with this hit as she feels the earth shifting under her feet. With each take, Robert Patrick — the man with eyes of steel — fixes me with his gaze. I first saw him in Terminator 2 as the unstoppable machine. In this scene, Robert remains the tough soldier breaking tough news to the wife of a Unit man. He accomplishes his mission, but at the same time Robert is always fully and achingly human.

Before we shoot, or afterwards, Robert can often be found sitting under a shade tree in front of the production office. A Harley man who wears a skull ring with diamonds set in its eye sockets (a gift from his beloved wife), as well as layers of crucifixes around his neck, he sits puffing his favorite cigar and sharing much-needed jokes.

This episode, Dennis Haysbert, as the captured Jonas, is tied, trussed and chained for hours on end and tortured, beaten, suffocated and cut over and over, take after take, during the course of several days. Physically and mentally it's grueling.

Veteran Unit man Eric Haney often shadows the set in a safari jacket, a cowboy hat and boots — his usual camouflage. They say he's always armed — with a small pistol or a knife always concealed. Behind his thick mustache is an easy smile. But on days like this, I can't imagine what's behind his eyes as he watches scenes, play-acted on a stage, that are part of his real-life memories.

Home During the Break
Texas on Thanksgiving Day and I'm sitting around the table with aunts, uncles and various cousins. My Aunt Virginia has been banging some pots since the day before. I have a plate of Cornish hen, ham, stuffing, cabbage, beans and links, roasted potatoes and chitlins. Haven't had chitlins in over 20 years. And we got some lemon cake and sweet pu-tay-tee pie. Umph.

Around the table sit 4-year-olds to 64-year-olds. The baby girl smiles back at me with my mother's face. The youngest boy tears around the table like a Tasmanian devil with the eyes of an angel. We grown folks talk about the future and the present, but we mostly chew on the past. On my right is my Aunt Evelyn, who enlisted in the Air Force in the '70s, put in her 20 years and retired a master sergeant. She traveled — Germany, Korea, New Jersey. Never saw combat. She enjoys watching The Unit. Appreciates what we get right about portraying life in the military. To my left is my Uncle Johnny. Drafted. 'Nam. Artillery. Three years. He's had too much of a taste of it before he came over this afternoon, and is nodding at the table. He joins the conversation midstream: "I remember. You thought I had forgotten. You'd be surprised what I remember," reminding his younger sister Evelyn of a conversation that they had ages ago. Then pointing to my hands: "You used to play — you were good," reminding me of the piano lessons I took till the age of 13. Haven't played since. "I don't forget nothing."

Erect now in his seat — "Drafted. 23 years old. Three years I was out there, shooting almost everyday at people I couldn't see. They hated me. They were shooting at me. Hurts. Never forget." His cheeks are wet. The youngest boy stops running around the table long enough to squeeze the grown man.

In the Nov. 21 episode "Report by Exception," Jonas is assigned to go to Latin America to assassinate an oil minister with the support of a "cover wife." He is tempted by the charms of his new partner. Meanwhile, his real wife, Molly, takes a personal interest in Crystal, whose boyfriend Molly has recruited as a driver in Algeria.

Crystal voices both of their insecurities when she asks how Molly copes with not knowing "Where he is, what he's doing, if he's OK. And is he even thinking of you? Maybe he's shacking up with some other woman. Or he's laying dead on the side of a desert road. How do you not think about those things?"

Molly's reply: "I don't go there." Succinct.

The answer is insufficient for the newly initiated Crystal. Molly can't find the words to share what she knows. There is this wall between Unit husband and wife. He can never share what goes on when he's away. Where he's been or with whom or how he spends his days — typical parts of sharing in a typical marriage run counter to this life. He lives other lives when he's gone, and so does she. She knows that to "go there" means to fall into an abyss of questions, doubts, fears. Will he return? Will we recognize each other when he returns? A paralyzing fall.

Molly doesn't allow herself to go there anymore. Molly stands on the tested foundation of a long marriage. She wants him to come back safe. She has to trust he will come back however he comes back. And when he does, she wants him to see in her eyes the reflection of his eyes — that here is home.

Her choice each day is to walk on trust as she prays that the earth will not give.

This is what I imagine Molly Blane is thinking as she sits at the lunch counter not knowing how to find words of comfort for Crystal in "Report by Exception."

November in Los Angeles
Eighty degrees in sunny L.A. Hard to believe Thanksgiving is fast approaching. Today I'm slicing into a soft persimmon. I've been waiting a week and a half for this one to ripen, ever since we were in the West Adams District shooting scenes at Jonas' "family house" where, in the backyard, I was sitting under what I thought was a beautiful orange tree. The tree's owner, seeing my admiration, gave me a bagful of persimmons as I left and told me to wait till they got soft. Impatient, I sliced into my first persimmon last week while it was still pale and firm. It tasted bitter. This one, dark orange, I scoop out with a spoon and it reminds me a bit of ripe mango but not as sweet, and it's starchy. I wonder if it's overly ripe. They seem to be ripening at their own individual pace. I'll know in a day or two which one I should try next. Ain't that life?

Joining The Unit
Last Thanksgiving was the first one without my mother. I'm an only child. Single. Born and raised in Texas. West Dallas Projects. Flatland. Wide open sky. I had been living in New York for over 20 years when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Moved back home five years ago to be with her. In her last years she taught me how to garden. She tended her garden daily without fail. She taught me to clear the bed and plan in my mind's eye how things might grow in season as I planted. Patience. Each season a new adventure. Each day a new opportunity to succeed or fail and to use the failure to learn and grow stronger with patience. She gave me an understanding of seasons.

I took one day job of acting in those years. Started out as a writer. And so I continue to write. Mostly plays. Visiting a friend in California in the spring of '05, I went in for a meeting with producers Shawn Ryan, David Mamet and Eric Haney (writer, Inside the Delta Force, inspiration for The Unit). I went in for the meeting. Wanted to meet the playwright — Mamet — specifically. I wasn't prepared for getting the role. Didn't expect it. When I got offered the job, I discussed it with my mother, who was in remission, and encouraged me to accept the opportunity. Two weeks to shoot the pilot and then one never knows what will come. I knew working with Shawn, David and Eric would be an adventure. I've admired Dennis Haysbert's work for many years, and to play his wife — what mad fun. Two weeks. Then I went home and spent the last spring with my mother in her garden. A month after her death I heard that the pilot was picked up, and I flew back to L.A. to continue shooting. I needed it to keep myself occupied in the in-between time.

We are now halfway through the second season. The writing is challenging. The cast is a joy. Tomorrow I will pack a small bag and head back to Dallas. Back to my mother's garden. I'll sit in the backyard gazebo, sip sweet tea, rock — and give thanks.