Lethal Weapon, a 2016 comedy series created by Matt Miller is based on Shane Black’s film series of the same name, Lethal Weapon. The series has a total of three seasons which has 18 episodes in its first season, 22 episodes in its second followed by 15 episodes in its third season. Lethal Weapon aired for the very first time in the year 2016 on September 21 and went on till February 26, 2019.
The first two seasons of the show focus on Roger Murtaugh, who is played by Damon Wayans, and Martin Riggs, who is portrayed by Clayne Crawford. Roger is an aged detective with a family of three children and a wife, whereas Martin is a young detective with a wife and an unborn child. Despite having different ways to catch a criminal, both form a close friendship and started respecting each other.
Following Martin Riggs’ death in season second, Roger suffers from a six-month-long depression until he meets Wesley Cole. Seann William Scott played the role of Wesley Cole in season three of the show. Former Central Intelligence Agency operative, Cole forms a partnership with Roger later in the show.
Apart from these actors, the audience also got to see Jordana Brewster playing Dr. Maureen Cahill, Keesha Sharp, and Kevin Rahm as Trish Murtaugh and Captain Brooks Avery respectively. Detective Sonya Bailey is played by Michelle Mitchener. Whereas, Chandler Kinney and Dante Brown can be seen playing Riana Murtaugh and Roger “RJ” Murtaugh Jr respectively.
Martin Riggs
In the year 2018 in March Martin Riggs’s character who was portrayed by Clayne Crawford died. Was it because of the storyline or was there another reason? Let us find out what exactly happened.
Why Martin Riggs was Killed in Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon’s popularity dropped when one of his characters, Martin Riggs had an early demise. Martin Riggs was a young detective with his ‘devil-may-care’ attitude which generally put his and his partner, Roger Murtaugh’s life in danger. This change happened after Riggs’ hostile behavior towards the members of the show, both on-screen and off-screen.
Clayne Crawford on various occasions expressed that he was not comfortable while performing the show’s action stunts as those stunts were putting his life in danger. The fire started arising between Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans. The tension between them started arising when Wayans was hit by shrapnel during the shoot of an episode that was directed by Crawford, leading the duo to stop talking to each other.
Later, Wayans on his Twitter handles shared some of Clayne’s ‘bad boy’ behavior. He shared videos and pictures of his injury during the shooting of one of the episodes which Clayne was directing, he tagged it with #NoApology.
Clayne Crawford
Even after, several warnings when Clayne was not changing himself he was then fired from the show. Warnes Bros. was considering stopping the show’s production after firing Clayne Crawford, but due to the financial crisis they will have to face, Fox somehow convinced him to carry on with the show. After he was fired from the show, Clayne Crawford released a video apologizing to the people.
He said that he’s incredibly sorry if his passion for doing good has ever made anyone feel less than comfortable. Later, in the video he apologized to the show’s members for all the negative attention, the show’s been receiving because of him.
Following, Clayne’s firing Wayans went to his Twitter, to reveal what Clayne had been doing on the sets. He claimed that he (Clayne) used to make women cry and also made work difficult for other members of the show.
Martin Riggs
He also mentioned that he has a file that has all the ‘infractions’ Clayne has done while working in Lethal Weapon. He also shared that, actor Lance Henriksen was hit by Clayne with a green tea bottle in his mouth. After all this Wayans deleted his Twitter account permanently.
Many actors in the show said that they will not work with Clayne Crawford. After he was removed from the show, the creators of the show were left with the problem of finding Clayne’s substitute. After multiple auditions and interviews with many actors, they finally landed on Seann William Scott, who was introduced in season 3 of the show as Central Intelligence Agency’s former operative Wesley Cole.
