Recent sci-fi drama series that heavily deal with time travel-oriented narratives generally tend to be character-driven, and CBC’s latest ‘Plan B’ is no exception. The series follows a person’s relentless quest to challenge his destiny after discovering a way to go back in time while retaining the experiences of past events and thereby altering them accordingly, and a number of related characters whose motivations, actions, and fate get changed in the process. Although we see the events unfold from the perspective of the lead character, a number of characters play significant roles in the shifting timelines and, much like the lead character, reside in the gray area without committing themselves to the binary of moral positions. We will take a quick look at each of them and have a brief discussion about the gradual development they get over the course of several different timelines.
Spoilers Ahead
Philip Grimmer
The protagonist of the story, whose perspective leads us through the entire narrative of the first season, is Philip Grimmer, played by Patrick J. Adams, who once again plays the role of an overachieving lawyer after his tenure as Mike Ross in “Suits.” Initially, we meet Philip as the co-founder of the law firm “Grimmer and Landry” along with his friend Patrick Landry, and with the narrative progression, it becomes clear that, out of the two, Philip is the wunderkind. It’s mostly thanks to his public skills, argumentative skills, and perseverance that the firm manages to gain some reputation. However, his workaholic nature is something that causes Evelyn to feel neglected, and later, his promiscuous tendency creates a permanent rift in their relationship, regardless of whether he consummates his affair or not. Philip is also passively egotistical and considers most of the people associated with him, like his half-brother Andy, friend and partner Pat, and even his partner Eve, to be beneath him, morally or otherwise. Which at first seems to be true given how he built his image as a straight-arrow type of guy.
But the façade of the good person he carries fades after a desperate Phil discovers the existence of the impossible—in the form of a mysterious agency called ‘Plan B,’ which allows him to wipe off any past regrets, redo all second chances, and alter the reality of not only himself but also all the people close to him, without their knowledge. The ‘Plan B’ essentially becomes a cheat code for Phil in the game of life, and he misuses it to the fullest as he pleases. Instead of working on himself and changing his nature for the better, Phil sees Plan B as a means to also achieve godhood. Later, his insecurity regarding Evelyn’s cheating eats him up so much that he even imagines her cheating with any guy she is associated with career-wise, even in the altered timeline where she didn’t have any idea about Phil’s affair, which is only an extension of Phil’s pathetic control obsessive mindset. Phil likes to think that he loves his wife and daughter dearly, but his love is almost synonymous with obsession and possessiveness, which tend to become suffocating and toxic. He doesn’t care about the considerations of the people on the other side either; like the typical male chauvinist, he knows what’s good for everyone even though the person(s) in question have no option to share opinion in that regard. Phil isn’t saving anyone or helping others; he is just adding a new polish to his rusted ego, deluding himself all the while that he is a good person.
Aside from gaslighting his partner and family, the worst thing Phil had done is probably how he took his loved ones and the opportunity provided by ‘Plan B’ for granted and, purely from a moral perspective, destroyed the lives of people involved without bothering about or even suffering consequences. By the end, he had no remorse left even after his infant daughter died, and he decided to alter Eve’s course of life by throwing her back to the past to give her a chance to reshape her life, only to later shock her with the realization that he knew everything all along, about all the realities. With this ultimate act of cruelty, Phil became both the protagonist and the overarching antagonist of his own story.
Evelyn Landry
Before getting into a relationship with Phil, which ended up changing her whole life not once but twice, Evelyn Landry was a talented musician with promising career prospects and planned to move to Prague to pursue her dream of becoming a star cellist. However, after falling in love with Phil, she decides to sacrifice her passion for the sake of their relationship and joins his firm as a paralegal. However, her commitment or contributions are often neglected by Phil and also by her brother Pat, and gradually Phil’s neglect starts taking its toll on her. After she discovers Phil’s affair with Miranda, she is more hurt by the fact that Phil never saw her in that esteemed position, which he offered to Miranda, which, combined with her humble beginnings, solidified her inferiority complex in front of Phil, which is probably why she was persuaded by Phil to drag out the relationship for so long. Once again, her low self-esteem led her to believe Phil, who had the destiny-altering tool in the form of ‘Plan B’ to basically rectify his way through every wrong decision, regret, and misstep.
However, her tragic flaw is her anger, which leads her to cheat on Phil with another lawyer after she learns about Phil’s affair. But at least she had the honesty to confess her immoral act, unlike Phil, although it doesn’t amount to much in the narrative. Her animosity for Phil gradually increases with the realization that she has become a puppet in his hands, and when Phil finally decides to share the truth of Plan B as the master key in their destinies, which he had used liberally to ‘save their relationship and protect his family, it comes as little to no surprise to her. She knows full well what kind of monster Phil has turned out to be anyway. In the end, she gets a second chance to restart her life when Phil sends her back in time, before the moment she meets him. She utilizes her full potential with this new opportunity and becomes a star cellist. She also marries the person she loves in this lifetime. Later, as she tells Phil about the fact that she had made peace with the new life and forgotten the previous regretful one, fate deals a cruel hand as Phil’s mention of Charlotte clarifies that he knew everything about both lifetimes. This makes his choosing Miranda as his life partner in this life even more of a cruel act towards Eve, who ends up as a tragic figure in the end.
Patrick Landry
From the initial assumption, it seems Patrick Landry, the co-founder of the law firm “Grimmer and Landry,” is on the opposite side of the spectrum from his career partner and friend Philip Grimmer. However, this turns out to be true in a roundabout way, as our perspective on the individuals changes by the end. Unlike the talented, straight-arrow that Phil is, Pat isn’t too skilled and depends solely on his wits and some below-the-belt procedures to save the day. Adamant to break the family tradition of underachievers, Pat wants to win by any means, even if it means sleeping with clients and cheating on his husband Eric in the process to secure the chance of getting a contract, using people as Trojan horses, or getting confidential information by gaining trust and faking sympathy. Nothing is below him. According to his own admission, he does so to protect and ensure a better future for his family, but most of these hasty, impulsive actions of his cause even more trouble for both his family and professional life.
Unlike Phil, however, who has very little regard for Pat as a professional partner and as a friend, Pat depends on Phil in his life and has always stood by his side even in the worst times. When Phil is faced with the morality of his decision to alter every regrettable past after seeing his prematurely born baby struggle to survive due to complications, he asks Patrick whether he would have changed to ensure that his own son, who is a paraplegic, didn’t turn out that way. Patrick answers with a straightforward innocence that will change the person his son is, and he’d never trade that for anything. Even a morally compromised person like Patrick knows where to draw the line, and he emerges as a better person, unsurprisingly in direct contrast with Phil, but in a different way at the end.
