'Nikita' co-star Melinda Clarke: Impact of tonight's 'Inception'-esque episode 'might even be bigger than Thom dying'

Image Credit: Jan Thijs/The CWIf you’ve seen the previews for tonight’s episode of The CW’s Nikita, you know that Division’s resident master manipulator Amanda (Melinda Clarke) is once again getting her torture on. Only this time, she’s playing mind games.

At the end of last week’s episode, we saw Alex being taken to Division HQ for what Clarke calls “[Amanda’s] version of rehab” (a.k.a.: complete horror).

“Amanda puts her under her own kind of truth serum, and it’s a drug called Ibogaine, and I’ve been told that it’s a real drug; that it’s a hallucinogen,” Clarke tells EW. “People experience a sort of waking dream state, so it’s our version of Inception, I guess. At this point, Alex is in danger of revealing her secret, because the audience knows ow that she’s a Russian princess and that could be very damaging. If Amanda ever knew anything about that, she’d be dead on the spot, of course. So in this situation she’s pretty obsessed with getting what she needs to know out of Alex’s brain.”

But Clarke said she doesn’t believe Amanda is “out to get Alex”; she simply the potential in the young recruit.

“If you can survive the Amanda torture, you’re going to be the best soldier and best weapon [they] have out there,” says Clarke. “So I’m hoping that, that’s kind of the way I’ve approached this episode. She’s the ultimate tiger mom, or colonel justice. She’s going to train you and abuse you to her best ability so that you can actually have success. And part of that might actually be finding weakness. And if there’s any weakness that will compromise you in the field, we have to either fix it, or get rid of you.”

And there is a reveal. A “huge” one, in fact.

“It might not have the impact that Amanda or that the audience expects, but it will absolutely change the course,” she teased. “Somebody actually said to me [the impact] might even be bigger than Thom dying.”

Guess, Nikita fans?

(Additional reporting by Hillary Busis)

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