Countdown's Uli Latukefu Stands By Finau's Bold, Protocol-Breaking Move: 'It's Every Father's Worst Nightmare'
The following contains spoilers from Episode 9 of Countdown, now streaming on Prime Video.
This week on Prime Video's Countdown, personally extenuating circumstances led LAPD gangs and narcotics officer Lucas Finau to break protocol and exhibit atypically audacious behavior — all during a critical juncture in Hurricane Task Force's ongoing manhunt.
In Episode 9 (of 13), new clues led the task force to surmise that Volchek was targeting "The Vine," a densely populated outdoor shopping plaza, with two truckloads of explosives. Arriving on the scene, SAC Blythe (Euphoria's Eric Dane) — just barely up and around after getting stabbed last episode! — tasked Shepherd (The Flash's Violett Beane) and Bell (The Boys' Elliot Knight) with assessing the detonation system, while Meachum (Supernatural's Jensen Ackles), Oliveras (All Rise's Jessica Camacho) and Finau (Young Rock's Uli Latukefu) fanned out to deftly look for Volchek in the crowd.
That quiet, controlled manhunt took a turn, though, as soon as Finau realized that his wife Amina (Nicole Lyn) and daughters Kennedy (Autumn Layne) and Cameron (Grace Jenkins) were there at The Vine, as part of a school field trip. Distraught to see his own family in great harm's way, Finau used his sidearm to fire multiple shots into the ground, to grab the crowd's attention and then bellow at them to clear out.
More than a bit of chaos ensued.
"I mean, it's every father's worst nightmare" to see their kids in jeopardy, Latukefu told TVLine of Finau's impulsive act. "As a father myself, it definitely is mine."
Finau firing his gun amidst throngs of innocent civilians, even at the ground, "goes against every protocol that they're taught," the actor acknowledges. "But I think that in the heat of the moment, any father would do that, any mother would do that. Work is work and family is family. And Finau's first priority is his family."
Countdown castmate Elliot Knight, sitting next to Latukefu during our Zoom, said that the task force having a family man like Finau is not a bug, but a feature.
"I think that's an important part of why Blythe has put together this team of people," Bell's portrayer posits. "These aren't just people who are good at their jobs and will do whatever they're told to do; he knows that each agent has their own edge, and maybe they begin and end at different points. And there are points where breaking protocol might be the right thing or the best thing to do in that moment.
"It's not predictable" how any given agent might be specifically affected by a situation, Knight notes, "but there is an edge there that you hopefully have over the enemy you're trying to beat."