XJJohnson/jpistudios.com
Baby Steps: EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) issues a Jude-related ultimatum to Sloan (Jessica Serfaty).
EJ spies a drunk Nicole kissing Eric, stirring up a mix of emotions that ultimately leads him to make a crucial decision: He corners Sloan and demands that she turn Jude over to him and Nicole.
“Pick whichever kind of emotion you want,” begins Dan Feuerriegel (EJ), reflecting on his character’s feelings after seeing his wife and her ex together. “It’s anger. It’s insecurity. It’s sadness. It’s the feeling that comes with betrayal. It’s also an acknowledgment of his fear, which is, ‘I’m never going to fully have this girl.’ Eric is always going to be number one, regardless of what is going on in their lives.”
EJ holds back his anger and once Eric leaves, he decides not to say anything to his wife about what he just witnessed. “There’s an element of he wants to say something, he wants to do something. But he wants Nicole so badly and wants to hold onto her so badly that he doesn’t want to do anything that’s going to rock the boat.” Assesses Feuerriegel, “He doesn’t want to give Eric the slightest chance, because if there’s any chink in the armor, it’s going to fall one way, and EJ knows that.”
While in her drunken state, Nicole expresses her seemingly futile wish that she and EJ still had their baby. Her words hit EJ hard “because of a number of things,” notes Feuerriegel. “It’s their past in regards to them having lost children before. EJ has wanted a child so badly with her. They put so much effort into it, and it was such a risky thing to do. Then when it comes out that [the baby is] not his, he’s hit by that for all of those reasons. And also he feels guilty that he’s keeping this secret [that Jude is Nicole’s child]. He’s actively seeing Nicole upset and sad over what she went through and what he went through as well with her. EJ feels a ton of guilt. He is sacrificing Nicole’s happiness for his relationship, his love and his ego.”
After helping Nicole to bed, EJ sees a text from Eric and takes off. He ends up at Sloan’s door, where he demands she hand over Jude in 24 hours — and if she doesn’t comply, he vows to expose her lies to everyone. “It’s a fairly dense bunch of scenes where EJ does what he does,” recounts Feuerriegel about EJ’s confrontation with Sloan. “He’s like, ‘Hey, you can go off wherever you want to go. You can live the best life ever. I will pay for it. All you have to do is confess and pretend as though you’ve run away. I will take the baby, and you will be set up for life.’ Sloan has a retort in there, but EJ somehow convinces her that no one’s going to believe her. She’s the one who did this, and he’s the one who’s coming to try and right the wrong.”
And it’s a wrong that EJ wants to right – well, at least half right — in a desperate attempt to shore up Nicole’s commitment to their marriage. Offers Feuerriegel, “The way I see it is he saw what Nicole not having this child is doing to her, so he’s going to fix that. But in doing that he also knows that if she believes that that child is his and hers, it will strengthen their relationship, and Eric will fall by the wayside.”
