Burden Of Truth's Kristin Kreuk Reveals How The Show Honors Its Canadian Indigenous Roots - Exclusive

Countless legal dramas have come and gone over the past few decades, but few tackle critical social issues as well and as thoroughly as The CW's "Burden of Truth." Centering around corporate-turned-activist superstar lawyer Joanna Hanley (Kristin Kreuk), the series has deep Canadian Indigenous roots both in terms of the cast and crew and the plot.

It seems as though every week, new discoveries come to light on the fatal horrors and abuse that Indigenous children faced in the Canadian residential schools they were forced into. According to the BBC, known deaths have reached over 3,000 children, but proper identification of the unmarked graves from several residential schools is ongoing. It's baffling how community leaders could so thoroughly sweep these deaths under the rug. We're only now discovering the full scope of these atrocities, which according to current findings, occurred as recently as 50 years ago and as early as 1900, per the BBC.

With these new revelations, it's essential now more than ever to lend a voice to Indigenous communities and the importance of land ownership and the right for individuals to practice and honor their culture openly. And that's precisely what "Burden of Truth" is centering its fourth and final season on. During an exclusive interview, Kreuk spoke to Looper about how "Burden of Truth" honors its Canadian Indigenous roots and why these stories are so important to tell on-screen right now.

We asked Kristin Kreuk how the Indigenous storylines of "Burden of Truth" have helped shape the series and how they've helped shed light on some of the injustices that still happen today. "Our show is about intergenerational trauma — I mean, to me, it is anyway," she said. "I think the themes are fairly well represented ... And from the Indigenous side of things, on our show, there are a few writers in the writers room who are Indigenous. Our production company is more than 50% Indigenous-owned. We have Indigenous directors. So it's a show that has been influenced by people's lived experiences and the issues that they have in their communities, and they want to talk about."

Of course, the final season is digging deeper on these topics than ever before. "We're really looking at this season, especially ... we're looking a bit at land and how Indigenous land has been stolen, misused, how people have been threatened and treated poorly, and how that continues in various ways today. And not only that, but what the ripple effects of that have been on multiple generations," Kreuk noted. "The woman who is in this season that Joanna is representing, you eventually meet her daughter, and you start to see what her life has been like because of certain situations."

"I think that this last season was very much about land and about our Indigenous characters, being able to assess how much they want to be within the system and how much they want to work outside of it," Kreuk added. "And really analyze how the system is contributing to the issues or exacerbating them, or at least not doing anything to change them."

Fans can tune into the final season of "Burden of Truth," airing Friday nights on The CW and streaming on The CW website the next day.