Why Officer Gene Clemens From In The Dark Looks So Familiar
When Corinne Kingsbury's "In the Dark" premiered on the CW in 2019, audiences weren't sure what to expect from the genre-defying show, which seemed to fluctuate between dark comedy and police procedural. The series stars Perry Mattfeld as Murphy, a misanthropic, twenty-something blind woman who idles away her days boozing, napping, and picking up men. Murphy seems content to continue wasting her life between reluctant shifts at her parents' guide dog training center until she finds the lifeless body of her friend Tyson (Thamela Mpumlwana) in an alley. Grief-stricken, she vows to solve his murder herself.
One of the show's major arcs is Murphy's relationship with Detective Dean Riley (Rich Sommer), a cop with a visually impaired daughter. Initially, Murphy teams up with him to work on the investigation, but it eventually becomes clear that he's harboring some dark secrets. Enter narcotics Officer Gene Clemens in Season 2, Dean's new partner on the force, who suspects that Dean is not all that he seems.
Gene Clemens may be the role for which actor Matt Murray is best known, but "In the Dark" is far from his only television credit. Here are some other roles in which you may remember Murray appearing.
Murray also played cops on Rookie Blue and Eyewitness
As it turns out, Matt Murray's turn on "In the Dark" isn't his first time portraying law enforcement. From 2014 to 2015, he played Officer Duncan Moore on "Rookie Blue." The Canadian police drama, which debuted in 2010 and aired on ABC in the US, follows a group of cops in Toronto that have just graduated from the police academy. Throughout its six seasons, they learn to navigate the trial-by-fire challenges of real-life police work. Murray appeared as Duncan from Season 5 to Season 6.
Despite the surface similarities between the roles, the do-right, justice-seeking Gene Clemens could not be any more different from the crooked, incompetent Duncan Moore. From day one at 15 Division, Duncan is a cowardly, bumbling trouble-maker who goes out of his way to make life hard for his fellow officers on the squad. He is later suspended after endangering his training officer, Andy McNally (Missy Peregrym), on the job.
Murray addressed his feelings about playing the villain in an interview with Talk Nerdy With Us: "If you're doing a comical part and you make people laugh, you know you did your job. If you're doing a sad part, you make people cry, you know you did a good job. So if you're the bad guy and everybody hates you, you know you did a good job."
Murray went on to play another cop, Detective Tony Michaels, in the 2016 crime drama miniseries "Eyewitness" alongside Julianne Nicholson, Tyler Young, and James Paxton.
Murray had roles on sitcoms Kevin from Work and 9JKL
Matt Murray got to show off his comedy chops in 2015 by playing the best friend of the titular Kevin on Freeform's "Kevin from Work," which is available to stream on Hulu. The sitcom stars Noah Reid ("Schitt's Creek") as Kevin, a hapless office worker who falls hopelessly in love with his colleague, Audrey (Paige Spara), and confesses his feelings for her before he's due to leave for a new dream job — which immediately falls through. Kevin is forced to return to his former workplace, and awkward hijinks ensue. Murray co-stars as Brian, a handsome fitness instructor and Kevin's confidante. "Kevin from Work" aired to mixed reviews, achieving a middling 55% percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and was canceled after just one season (via Variety).
In 2016, Murray returned to the sitcom fold by joining the cast of the CBS comedy "9JKL," which also aired for just one season (via Deadline). The series stars Mark Feuerstein as a fictionalized version of himself, a down-on-his-luck actor and recent divorcé who moves into an apartment located on the same floor as his parents and brother. Murray co-stars as Nick, the apartment building's doorman.
Murray played Erik on Snowpiercer
Based on the 2013 Bong Joon Ho film of the same name (which is itself an adaption of a series of graphic novels by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, per Indiewire), "Snowpiercer" is a TNT dystopian drama about a train that endlessly circles the frozen, uninhabitable earth. The train is divided into hierarchies that mirror real-life class systems, with rich passengers effortlessly enjoying all the luxuries of first-class while the lowest-income residents are forced to occupy the destitute Tail of the train. The show debuted in 2020 and stars Daveed Diggs ("Hamilton") as Andre Layton, a Tail passenger and former detective who is recruited by the train's Hospitality to solve a murder.
Matt Murray appears in the first season as Erik Sotto, the bodyguard and boyfriend of the upper-class passenger LJ Folger (Annalise Basso). Spoiler alert! He is ultimately revealed by Andre Layton's investigation to be the murderer onboard the Snowpiercer, acting on LJ Folger's orders. Erik manages to kill both Sean Wise, a spy for the mysterious engineer of Snowpiercer, Mr. Wilford (Sean Bean), and Nikki Genet (Madeleine Arthur), a Nightcar worker wrongly suspected of the murder, before Andre figures out he is the real culprit. He is later killed by former British SAS Commander Nolan Grey (Timothy V. Murphy).