The Royal Pains Character You Probably Forgot Willa Fitzgerald Played
The show "Reacher" proved to be a big hit with fans and audiences in general. So much so that not long after Season 1 dropped on Amazon Prime, the show was renewed for Season 2 (per Deadline). Critics also found a lot to enjoy in "Reacher," and the first season garnered an 89% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes alongside a 90% audience score. While most of the praise came in the form of Alan Ritchson's book-accurate portrayal of the title character, Jack Reacher, a significant amount of praise was leveled at Willa Fitzgerald's portrayal of Roscoe for her ability to match wits with Ritchson.
Fans of Fitzgerald may recall her time as the lead on the MTV "Scream" series during its first two seasons, but Fitzgerald has enjoyed a varied career in both television and film. In fact, one of her earlier roles was in a recurring role on the USA Network show "Royal Pains" that many fans probably forgot about.
Willa Fitzgerald played a con artist on Royal Pains
During Season 6 of "Royal Pains," Willa Fitzgerald made her debut on the show as Emma Lawson, the half-sister of main characters Hank Lawson (Mark Feuerstein) and Evan Lawson (Paulo Costanzo). She's also revealed to be a con artist that caused a lot of drama within her brothers' lives. The character would only appear during Season 6 before leaving to go on a book tour with Eddie Lawson (Henry Winkler), the siblings' father.
The character received a mixed response from fans, with some finding her boring but some thinking she added an interesting new dynamic to the brothers' lives. On Reddit, u/lordxeon wrote, "As far as the inconsequential characters, Emma? She was an endless stream of useless episodes and drama." Yet on another post discussing an episode of Season 6, u/NapsAndNetflix believed that her storyline during Season 6 was interesting. "Emma's storyline is really starting to interest me. I have no clue what they're going to do with it."
Regardless, Fitzgerald has come a long way since her time on "Royal Pains" and it'll be interesting to see if her star-making performance on "Reacher" leads to other, more high-profile roles in the future.