'Good Behavior' Just Changed Everything

The tables have officially turned on Good Behavior. Ever since TNT's addictive new drama premiered, the first six episodes focused on flawed anti-heroine Letty (Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery) and her addiction to drugs, alcohol and stealing. Good Behavior was all about her highs, her lows and everywhere in between, while the new man in her life, Javier (Juan Diego Botto), tried his best to control the uncontrollable. Against all odds, however, the hit man shockingly became a good influence in her life – minus all the killing, of course – by forcing her to get clean. He was her rock throughout all the tumultuous aspects of her life.

But in "The Ballad of Little Santino," everything changed. Letty finally learned all about Javier's tragic history, why he became a hit man and why his family cut him out of their lives. It turns out that when Javier was 16, he accidentally caused the death of his seven-year-old cousin by throwing a rock at the rambunctious kid's head while on a camping trip. Not recognizing the signs of a brain injury, he let his cousin go to sleep when he really needed to go to the hospital.

Javier's father blamed him for little Santino's death and forced the rest of his family to shun him, calling him "evil" and a "killer." Cut off from his family, he moved to the U.S. and believing his father, he decided to make killing people his profession. But after his father had a heart attack, he reached out Javier's sister Ava (Maria Botto) and said that he wanted to finally reconcile with Javier. Ava got the entire extended family to fly in from Argentina for a giant family party, but it turns out that Javier's father actually hired a private investigator to follow Javier and he planned the whole party to expose him for being a contract killer. Even Ava, the only family to keep in contact with Javier his entire life, turned her back on him, leaving him truly without family for good.

Broken by his father's betrayal and hurt from his family leaving him once more, Javier tried to push Letty away too, giving her his car keys and telling her that she was finally free to leave. But instead of going, she stayed with him and chose him over her freedom. What started out as a dangerous, almost toxic relationship of Javier controlling Letty has now become a true, loving relationship in which they are truly equals and partners, and that will be explored in subsequent episodes, airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on TNT.

"Now it's just them," Botto tells Bustle on a phone call from Europe of how things will be different after episode 7. "There's one thing that's important in all the episodes we've seen, and that's little by little, we see that they are choosing each other. And in this episode, that is a very important scene at the very end."

And Javier won't bounce back from losing his family for quite some time.

"Up to this point, we've seen Letty being a mess and Javier always being focused and centered and helping her," Botto says. "Now for the first time, he's the one who is broken and he tried to push her away. 'Take the keys.' And she's the one who is staying for him. She's picking him up. She's saving him. There is something different that's changed between them. These two are choosing each other and to be together now."

While we've seen Letty struggling with her addiction to alcohol and drugs throughout the season, Javier seems to have an addiction of his own when it comes to Letty. After she meddled in one of his hits, he didn't just take back the money she stole and leave. He kept her with him, forced her to get clean and became a big part of her life.

"One of the things about this guy is that he likes to have rules and he likes to follow those rules and abide by those rules, even in the aspect of his life where he kills people," Botto says. "But now he's sincerely in love with Letty. That's the first time that that has happened to Javier."

Now that Javier has completely opened himself up to Letty, viewers finally know who the real Javier is under his tough and controlling exterior. For Botto, it was a relief to shoot this episode and reveal the essence of his character after keeping it hidden for six episodes.

"The reason why I was looking forward to this episode was because it's like having a secret that no one knows, not even the audience," Botto says. "You as the actor are hiding that secret, but at the same time, you need to show a little and give the audience a peep because that's what shaped this character. It was fun, up to this point, to know that I was holding this secret, this conflicted part of his life. But also it's good to have the complicity of the audience now that we both know what Javier has been through. It elevates everything and takes it all to a new level. And Letty and Javier's relationship is going to be stronger now."

Family was always such a big part of Javier's life even if they weren't physically in it for so many years, but now that they have all chosen to cut him out of their lives after learning the truth about what he does, expect that to affect him "deeply" moving forward.

"What happened with his family when he was a teenager was one of the reasons that he became what he is today. It's one of the reasons why he left Argentina and came to the U.S.," Botto says. "And the fact that he is what he is now, I think he's punishing himself and trying to prove his father right when he says, 'You're evil. You're a murderer.' There's this side of him who is trying to convince himself that he is, even though he is fighting that at the same time. But now that is a relationship that is clearly gone."

He paused, then continued, "And the most painful part of it is his sister Ava because she was the only actually family and connection to family that he had for many, many years. That being gone now, that's going to affect Javier deeply in the next episodes."

As for whether Javier is going to accept his family leaving him or if he will fight to keep them in his life, Botto couldn't say.

"What we're really going to see is that what happens in this episode is going to remain in him for quite some time," Botto says.

Now that Letty has chosen to stay with Javier, at least he hasn't lost everything and everyone in his life. After learning about his troubled past with his family, it makes sense that he bonded so deeply with Letty's son Jacob (Nyles Steele).

"Javier knows that Jacob is very important to Letty. Her entire life is about getting her son back and to reunite with him," Botto says. "But now that we know what happened to him with his younger brother, we're going to understand that he has this special bond with this kid, a special relationship. For him, now that he doesn't have his family, there is this chance of finally having a new family. I think there will always be this worry in his head about repeating his same mistakes, and it's probably present in every single thing that Javier does. But Jacob represents this chance to redeem himself and protect this young boy. He sees it as a second chance."

While Good Behavior has featured countless dark, dramatic, emotional scenes, Botto's pick for the hardest one to film was surprising.

"It was actually in this episode, when I'm in the kitchen with Letty and we're having a conversation about the book that she's writing and I'm telling her that she needs to find a title," Botto says. "I couldn't do that scene without laughing. The dialogue and the way that Michelle was looking at me, it was just so funny. We had to do it like a million times. I just couldn't stop laughing and that was hard. But other than that, there is a scene in the next episode where I have a monologue on a bed with Letty and I tell her about the first time I killed someone. That was a complicated scene to do."

Sounds like this new, open Javier is here to stay.