‘Tomorrow People’: Peyton List on Cara’s Shaky Leadership, Big Clashes and Unlikely Shifts

Things are getting hectic on The Tomorrow People.

After being voted in as leader of the Tomorrow People, Cara has had a rough go at the helm of the growing group of paranormals. On Wednesday’s episode, “Things Fall Apart,” things literally fall apart. With Cara still struggling to figure out how to be an effective leader and combating Ultra’s continuing threat, former flame John goes over the line, causing Cara to make her biggest decision yet.

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Peyton List talks to The Hollywood Reporter about Cara’s shaky tenure at the top, the state of the Cara-Stephen-John triangle and an “interesting shift” with Jedikiah.

Is it fair to say things are getting rough for the Tomorrow People?

Things are getting hectic, aren’t they? Our next episode is “Things Fall Apart,” and I think that pretty much says it. We’ve had so many changes happening in the last couple of episodes from the pilot. We now have revelations about Roger, the guy who we believed was our hero and our leader and the man who was going to save us — we found out that none of that was true and that maybe we’ve been searching in vain. We have John voted out as leader and Cara voted in, who has very little experience in decision-making situations. It’s caused quite a few things to go awry.

What about the state of Ultra?

We have a lot of things shifting over at Ultra. We’re learning more about the structure; maybe there’s more departments and factions. When we met the Founder, that was a revelation for the Tomorrow People; it changes what Ultra is and what the history there might be. This upcoming episode, we learn that the Founder — whether he’s good or he’s bad, he’s an extremely powerful paranormal — has a daughter (played by Serinda Swan). What does that mean? We don’t know that much about the genetics of how it works but we’re starting to figure out that if your parents were paranormal, most likely you are too and you may have even stronger powers. Meeting the daughter certainly opens up a whole other realm.

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At the end of last week’s episode, Stephen’s brother Luca started to break out. Does he come into the Tomorrow People world?

It’s something that would have to be explored with a little bit of caution. They want to make sure they know as much about a breakout as they can before they say, “Welcome to this world!” If they’re mistaken you have a problem on your hands. The breakouts, if you’ve noticed, they don’t happen overnight. I think they would approach the potential of Luca breaking out with caution. It’s a different thing to see because we don’t see siblings on the show too much. With Stephen’s family, it’s an entirely different thing. We know his dad is a paranormal and that he is a paranormal, wouldn’t that then make sense? And how do you deal with that? Would there be a crazier connection with siblings? The Luca thing threw all of us, but a cool thing to explore.

How do you think Cara is handling her new power position leading the Tomorrow People?

I feel like with Cara, there’s a few things she’s doing right, there’s a lot of things she’s doing wrong. The fact that she is quick to act can sometimes be a very good thing in a leader. She will make a decision one way or another. Is that always a good thing? We don’t know. John was much more careful about the decisions that he made, and would let everybody weigh in, whereas Cara is much more headstrong. It’s a different dynamic down in the subway with her as leader. She’s still trying to figure it out and the only person she can go to or lean on is John. He’s the only other person who’s bared that responsibility. We see an interesting change in their relationship because she’s having to take on responsibilities that maybe she didn’t fully understand before and what John had to deal with.

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How does that complicate Cara’s relationship with John?

With all these changes happening, you have these characters who are still the people that they are. With Cara stepping into the role, that doesn’t mean John isn’t a natural leader and has his own opinions. He won’t immediately fall into line; he’s been through too much. We saw that when John was leader and Cara would have to follow whatever decision he made. She would still do things maybe her own way and still believe in what she thought was right; we have that with John as well — the only difference being Cara hasn’t been in this role too long and she doesn’t know how to have full control and feel like she has everybody’s support. But so far, he’s been supportive.

But that can only last so long right?

Exactly.

In a recent episode, Cara talks about being unable to choose between Stephen and John, and with Astrid on the periphery, how alive exactly is the Cara-Stephen-John triangle?

Because of the show’s premise — there are so many of these life-threatening situations — it keeps them from acting on and doing things that they might do if they didn’t have to deal with all these things. When they’re forced to rely on each other and put their lives in each other’s hands, it changes the dynamic I suppose. I don’t think Stephen and John would be having conversations or making plans for the good of the Tomorrow People; in normal circumstances, they’d probably hate each other. But we’re forced to be together and forced to work through it for the good of everybody else. You see the characters set aside their feelings a lot of the time so that it doesn’t affect decisions that they make or how they act. It never goes away; that’s always going to play a part, and we know Cara certainly has a connection with Stephen and we’re learning more about what the dynamic really is behind the curtain with John and Cara. 

Will we see more Cara backstory?

You will. We do, moving forward, flash back more and fill in more gaps. We’re still doing it this far into the season because it allows you why they made certain choices early on in present day. We do continue to see more of John and Cara’s pasts, which I absolutely love. I love the flashback stuff.

What’s one nugget you can share?

We see a very interesting shift coming up with Jedikiah. We’ve started to learn more and more about what his agenda is but there’s still this cryptic wall and don’t really know what’s behind it. And even though Stephen is trying to figure it out, he also can’t try so much because he doesn’t want to give himself completely away. As an audience member, you’re still looking at Jedikiah asking, “What is he really after? What really is going on?” He’s too intelligent and tactical for it to be all out on the table. Going forward, we will start to chip away at that and we’ll start to see what’s really behind it.

Watch a preview of Wednesday’s episode below.

The Tomorrow People airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.

Email: Philiana.Ng@THR.com
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