Nikita's Melinda Clarke: Control of Division Is Up for Grabs!

Melinda Clarke Amanda may be the current head of Division, but it appears that Percy might be calling the shots... from his prison no less. "I think Amanda is a master manipulator, but I think Percy's ego is even bigger," Nikita's Melinda Clarke tells TVGuide.com. "I think Amanda is a little more realistic but found herself getting caught up in the power and grandeur of all of Division. She's ultimately the same creature as Percy, and gets caught up into wanting more and more power. It goes beyond just money. For the future of Division, it'll be interesting to see who ends up in power. Clearly it could be up for grabs." From Nikita to Chuck: TV's sexiest crime fighters On Friday's "Clean Sweep" (8/7c, The CW), the former colleagues pick up from last episode's cliff-hanger, in which Percy (Xander Berkeley) is on the verge of escape. Amanda (Clarke) knows she can't kill him -- his death would trigger the release of all Division data in the remaining black boxes -- but threatens to put him into a chemically induced coma. Percy, however, only has to give the command and his Guardians are standing by to shoot the Oversight members they're holding hostage and then unleash a deadly gas in Division that will kill everyone, including Amanda. In the midst of this power struggle comes personal feelings of bitterness. After Percy was deposed as the Commander of Division for trying to take over Oversight last season, Amanda was promoted in his place. "I think she misses having that dynamic and that relationship with Percy," says Clarke. "She's really furious with him for his actions and breaking up the dynamic duo that I think she saw as their relationship. We saw a little crack in her armor last week when she said, 'We had something,' but he's saying, 'We had nothing.' "He knows emotional warfare can be just as damaging as any other kind of warfare and he knows exactly which buttons to push," Clarke continues. "He feels so betrayed by Amanda for putting him in prison, yet she feels so betrayed by him for doing what he did. She's been put in the position of possibly having to kill him or putting him into this coma. She doesn't want to. So this next episode we'll see just how much power Percy does have." Check out the rest of today's news It sounds like exes fighting to us, but Clarke isn't too sure if Amanda and Percy ever had a love affair, not a traditional one anyway. "I don't know if it was ever a physical relationship but it definitely was intellectual and reciprocated in that they got [turned on by] each other's intellect," she says. "You could equate it with [an intellectual romance] for sure. That's what we allude to, but it goes beyond that, higher than that. That's how Xander and I see it." Meanwhile, Nikita (Maggie Q) and her rogue team have become aware of this precarious situation thanks to Madeline (Alberta Watson), one of the Oversight captives and the mother of Sean Pierce (Dillon Casey), and are faced with trying to save the innocent lives in Division. "The rest of the gang are in some ways forced to help Amanda because they're doing the right thing and go against Percy," Clarke says. "You have to pick your battles. So they're definitely involved." Executive producer Craig Silverstein adds, "We kind of get back into that Nikita-Alex dynamic that we had in the first season a little where Nikita needs Alex to do something in Division. Alex still kind of has a pass, so she goes in to work that out." The season has been building to Percy's escape, and Clarke confirms that he will be getting out of prison. Judging by preview photos, he accidentally runs straight into Nikita's gun-toting arms: "Percy's plan is not just to get out. He wants Division back. It's his place," Silverstein explains. "But trying to do both those things, he is going to not quite succeed. Everything's going to change." Percy shouldn't forget about Amanda either. "There are things going on off-screen that you would never expect," Clarke teases. "All kinds of contingency plans and master plans. She definitely has her own plans in the works, something that's been going on for a long time that'll be interesting and shocking for the audience. She's been working with somebody, somebody familiar, in her own master plan. It'll be pretty surprising and it's a very dynamic relationship, let's say that. That will be revealed in a few weeks. All those chess moves that haven't been done yet, they're always happening." Nikita airs on Fridays at 8/7c on The CW. Do you think Percy and Amanda were ever lovers? What do you think her master plan is? Who is her secret ally?