Jesse L. Martin’s character Alec Mercer tackles a number of challenging new cases in a new teaser trailer for “The Irrational” shared exclusively with TheWrap, ahead of its Season 2 premiere on Oct. 8.
Mercer, as we learned in Season 1, is a professor of behavioral science whose insight into human nature gives him an edge in catching criminals. When the NBC series returns, he has to figure out why someone would abandon a commercial ship they just hijacked, the motive behind the kidnapping of an abduction specialist and what drove a pop star to murder her biggest fan.
The short clip features a bomb going off, Mercer peering into a hatch, approaching a dead body and saying that cases that “don’t make sense” are his “speciality.”
We also see his sister Kylie (Travina Springer) warning him, “You can’t keep doing dangerous things,” advice that seems to fall on deaf ears as we next see him telling a classroom full of students, “There’s a lot of spectators in the world, but not enough heroes.”
The series is based on best-selling author Dan Ariely’s book, “Predictably Irrational.”
In addition to Martin, “The Irrational” stars Maahra Hill as FBI agent Marisa Clark, who’s also Mercer’s ex-wife; Molly Kunz as his assistant Phoebe; and Arash DeMaxi as research team member Rizwan Asadi.
Arika Lisanne Mittman, Mark Goffman, Sam Baum, David Frankel and Robert Wolfe executive produce the series.
The show is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.
The Season 2 opener, which was originally set for Oct. 1, was delayed a week due to the scheduled Vice Presidential debate between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance on CBS.
“The Irrational” Season 2 premieres Oct. 8 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock. Season 1 is now streaming on Peacock.
