George Willard

* Adult
* Youth

"*No, it's okay. See, there's nothing to be afraid of. It's just different.*"
—George to a young girl, Laurel, examining his mechanical arm
**George Willard** is a character on the Prime Video series *Tales from the Loop*. He lives in Mercer, Ohio and works as an employee of the Mercer Center for Experimental Physics, also known as "the Loop." He is married to Loretta Willard with whom he has a young son named Cole and an older son named Jakob. His father is Russ Willard, the founder of the Loop, and his mother is Klara. He is portrayed by Paul Schneider and also by Emjay Anthony as a young boy. He has a mechanical arm.

## History

### The creature on the island

As a youth, he was always told by his father, Russ, to never visit a certain island that was nearby the mainland of Mercer, Ohio, as it was too dangerous. George, however, did not want to appear chicken in front of his friends Chris and Adam and thus reluctantly agreed when they dared him to come with them on a canoe trip to check out the stories they had heard of a monster supposedly living on the island.

Upon arriving at the island, Chris and Adam played a prank on George by abandoning him, leaving him on the island by himself. George was left to fend for himself with only a small electric shock prod as his only survival tool. Not long after they left, he was bitten by a highly venomous insect, leaving a nasty wound on his arm. He made a tourniquet and then set out to explore the island and quickly came upon signs of habitation, such as fish that had recently been skewered on stakes. A storm set up and he took refuge inside a log and ended up falling asleep for a nap. Upon waking, he discovered that his wound was festering with a nasty green ooze and crawling with ants. He swatted away the ants and then set off again. He discovered a campsite, with a fire burning a trashcan. He then came face-to-face with a strange creature and ran away, following the calls of Chris and Adam, who had come back to look for him. During this incident, he ripped off one of the creature's arms. He made it back to the shore as they were leaving again. He shouted for them to come back, but it seemed to him as if they did not hear him and he collapsed into the water in a daze.

When he awoke, he was in a hospital and his arm had been amputated to prevent his entire body from becoming infected. He was then fitted for a mechanical arm. His father asked him if he had seen anything unusual on the island and he admitted that he had. His father told him that he must never speak of it to anyone. When Chris and Adam came to visit, he closed the blinds of his room to prevent them seeing him, not wanting to have anything more to do with them. At school, a girl named Uma, seeing his mechanical arm, wrote him a note asking him if he was a robot.

### Family life

Many years later, he was grown up and working at the Loop. He was the husband of Loretta Willard and had two children, their younger son Cole and older son Jakob. One day, Cole brought a young girl to their home who was searching for her mother. He learned from his wife that the girl was actually her from her youth, temporarily transported through time thanks to the effects of a piece of an artifact from the Loop known as the Eclipse.

Sometime not long after this, he had a conversation with his older son Jakob at the dinner time, in which he told him that changes would change after his graduation and that he would start work at the Loop. When Jakob seemed non-committal about the type of work he would do at the Loop, he told him that he didn't have to specialize right away. He dismissed Jakob's comment about drawing as being nothing more than a "hobby," unaware that Jakob was serious and not truly interested in working at the Loop. Later, he broke up an argument between Jakob and his friend Danny Jannson, and sent Danny away, unaware that the two of them had used a mysterious artifact of the Loop to switch bodies and that he was actually sending away his own son. Afterwards, he took a phone call from Danny's parents Ed and Kate, who wanted to know where Danny had gone. He asked the boy who he thought was his son if he had seen Danny, but he just shook his head. He commented that the two of them had been fighting and Danny/Jakob replied that he didn't want to talk about it. "Well, who the hell said I did?" he replied and left. Not long after this, he and Loretta were again at the dinner table with Jakob, was actually now Danny permanently stuck in their son's body. The boy they thought was their son told them that he planned to start working at the Loop and that he didn't think that he liked to draw anymore. George, unaware anything was amiss, was pleased, telling him that his grandfather would be proud.

He often drove his younger son Cole to visit his grandparents, Russ and Klara, at their home, and expressed his appreciation for their taking care of him and letting him stay overnight. Cole seemed to have a particular bond with Russ. One day, Russ and Klara came over to their home for a family conversation, in which they revealed that Russ had been given bad news by his doctor and did not have long to live. George wondered if there was anything they could do and had trouble with their calm acceptance of the situation. Despite this, he eventually seemed to accept resignedly that there was nothing that could be done. Not long after this, Russ collapsed at home and had to be hospitalized. Later, George and Loretta caught Cole paying a visit to the Eclipse, thinking that it could somehow help with his grandpa's condition. George told him that it wasn't what it was for, and when he asked to visit his grandfather told him that it wasn't a good idea right now. At some point not long after this, he made the unfortunate comment to Loretta that "I just wish he would die already," which was overheard by Cole. Cole asked again to see his grandfather and this time George agreed. Unfortunately, when they got there, Russ did not seem to recognize Cole, being lost in a memory of his wife when he was young. As Russ started raving, George sent Cole out of the room. Sometime within the next few days, Russ died and George attended a memorial service for him.

One evening, he and Loretta had dinner with Gaddis, a security guard employed at the Loop. They talked at dinner and George asked Gaddis if he was still living where he was before, if he didn't have any interest in moving closer to town. Loretta explained that George was a birder and liked being close to nature to see the birds. George asked what Gaddis liked about birds and he told him that he considered them to be perfect, a window into a world next to theirs. He described how a golden plover would go all the way to the Arctic for love, an idea he considered romantic. Loretta was dubious, but George agreed that was romantic. He then asked Gaddis about his own relationship status, but Loretta said that Gaddis had always been very picky, though Gaddis considered himself to have "discerning tastes." George noted that there probably weren't too many options in Mercer.

### Confronting his past

George continued to be haunted by his experience with the creature on the island, the Vagabond. Even as an adult, he continued to fiddle with an old radio, picking up the Vagabond's signals from the island. He muttered about the experience in his sleep, though his wife remained unaware of the nature of his nightmares. One day, he found that his son Cole had discovered the old shock prod from his youth stored in a closet. He took it away from Cole, telling him that it was not a toy.

He retained the same model of mechanical arm from his youth. Although there were newer, better models, he told a technician named Audrey that he didn't want a new one, and she agreed that the old model was a real workhorse as she repaired to be as good as new. Later, he went to the barbershop for a trim. There, he encountered a young girl named Laurel who was curious about his arm. Although her mother, Ruth, tried to call her away from him, he allowed her to examine the arm, smiling at her and telling her that there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was just different. At home, he considered the possibility of telling his sons the truth about what had happened to him on the island.

He visited his mother, Klara, and asked her over tea if he had ever talked with her about the island and what was on there, as he never had with him. Klara agreed that he and Russ never did talk very much and tried to deflect the conversation by offering him more iced tea. He pressed the issue and she told him that what was on the island was like a child to Russ. People wouldn't accept it, even though it was alive in its own way. George replied that it still was alive and Klara said "Poor thing." George was shocked, asking if she had any idea what had happened to him on the island. He asked why Russ didn't just kill it and she told him that it was the first, and that Russ knew the others would have to be different. George asked if Russ had put the creature on the island so that it wouldn't hurt anybody, but Klara replied, "No, he put it out there so no one would hurt it."

Realizing the error of his ways, George knew what he had to do. He again traveled to the island. Once there, he went to the Vagabond's camp, where he encountered the creature he had seen before. It was clearly an android, shiny and metallic, but with a kind face that seemed to possess awareness and sentience. It communicated using only screechy vocalizations, but George was no longer scared like he was before. He asked the Vagabond if he recognized him, saying that it was his father that made him. He told him that he was sorry for hurting him, that he didn't know. He then offered the Vagabond his own mechanical arm as compensation for the wrong he had done him.

### Losing his sons, finding his wife

His and Loretta's eldest son, Jakob, moved out the family home to an apartment above a nearby barbershop as he began work doing panel repair at the Loop. They still did not know that the boy they thought was their son was actually his best friend Danny living inside their son's body. They accepted this distance from them as something that was just part of their son's growing up, but their younger son, Cole, was less accepting. He asked if he could call his brother one day at dinner, and George agreed that he could after dinner. He told Cole that Jakob needed his space. Loretta said that it would be the same for him when he was older. Cole replied that he wouldn't, but George said that he would change his mind, telling him that things couldn't stay how they were because of time.

Not long after this, Cole disappeared into the forest by the town, searching for the robot that actually contained his brother's consciousness, Danny having revealed the truth to him. Meanwhile, Danny decided that it was finally time to reveal the truth to Jakob's parents as well. He went to George and Loretta and explained to them the truth of what had happened. He then took them to the forest, where they discovered the robot, lying on the ground, broken and surrounded by pine cones. It had been attacked by another robot and Cole left the pine cones as a memorial. George and Loretta were left bereft as Danny, permanently stuck in Jakob's body, returned to his real family - his parents Ed and Kate and sister Beth. Their loss was a double loss, as Cole had vanished as well, essentially suspended in time due to the effects of a mysterious stream within the forest. As Loretta directed the affairs of the Loop, his relationship with her evolved in a way it never had before. They shared the ups and the downs together, meals by themselves at home, her subtly correcting his posture, reminding him to try to stay positive. One day, he collapsed at work at the Loop. He passed away, and did not live to see his son Cole emerge from the limbo in which he was suspended, still a young boy and Loretta now a much older woman.

## Behind the scenes

Paul Schneider, the actor who portrays George Willard, stated that he thinks of him as "J. Robert Oppenheimer's son," referring to one of the men known as the "father of the atomic bomb." He describes his character as "struggling to be the father to his sons he never had." In a podcast, he further stated the character was the dutiful son who realized too late that he was following the wrong master. He also hopes that people relate to him seeing his own father being a better grandfather than he was a father and the tragedy of seeing someone treating someone else with care and wishing you had been treated that way.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Enemies"
2. ↑ "Loop"
3. ↑ "Transpose"
4. ↑ "Echo Sphere"
5. ↑ "Parallel"
6. ↑ "Home"
7. ↑ Winston Salem Journal - TV Tidbits: UNCSA alum talks about new streaming sci-fi series on Amazon
8. ↑ Michael Ahr & David Vitagliano (April 12, 2020). Sci Fi Fidelity Podcast: Tales from the Loop. Retrieved on May 17, 2020.