Before Pluribus, Rhea Seehorn Tormented Mark-Paul Gosselaar On This Forgotten Legal Dramedy
Now an award-winning actor for playing Carol Sturka in "Pluribus," Rhea Seehorn used to be a strong-willed attorney on "Franklin & Bash."
From 2011 to 2014, Seehorn portrayed Assistant District Attorney Ellen Swatello in 11 episodes of the TNT legal dramedy, which starred Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Breckin Meyer as a pair of hawkish lawyers. Over the course of the show's four seasons, Swatello repeatedly faces off with Gosselaar's Peter Bash and Meyer's Jared Franklin before joining their firm.
Swatello also shares a casual romance with Franklin, though Bash is far from amused at the relationship between his longtime friend and persistent rival. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics and general audiences, "Franklin & Bash" earned some praise for its fun characters and story. Seehorn's supporting role in the series didn't bring her the stardom "Better Call Saul" and "Pluribus" would later in her career, but "Franklin & Bash" still enabled her to showcase her talent alongside Gosselaar and Meyer.
Rhea Seehorn compared her Franklin & Bash character to another famous role
While fans of Seehorn can currently enjoy her widely acclaimed lead performance in "Pluribus," as well as her famous role in "Better Call Saul," it might also be worth checking out "Franklin & Bash" to explore one interesting fan theory.
Seehorn once addressed viewers' speculation that her "Better Call Saul" character Kim Wexler is destined to move from Albuquerque to Los Angeles and change her identity to Swatello. "I was not aware of that. That's hysterical," she told Collider in 2020.
Disagreeing with those who have compared Wexler to Swatello, Seehorn explained how she believes the two characters differ. "I feel like there's more differences than similarities, but there's definitely a very terse way of speaking," she said. "If Kim was trying to be witty with how terse and clipped she speaks... I feel like Ellen was very aware of having zingers, and there's no way Ellen Swatello would sit silently as Kim does through like eight pages of, in her mind, idiots blabbing on and she's just waiting to go in for the kill."