There's fresh blood flowing through Falling Water as the drama prepares to enter its second season on USA Network. The cast remains in place -- led by the trio of leads introduced in the debut season -- but actors Will Yun Lee, Lizzie Brochere and David Ajala have a new showrunner in Remi Aubuchon. And it was during our recent visit to the show's sprawling set in Toronto that we learned all about the exciting new direction of this budding season, which gets underway on Saturday, January 6. How much more exciting can a show that's already rooted in dreams actually become? Well, as Aubuchon explained to us, season two of Falling Water plans to build on the solid foundation of season one, but take a hard left turn. He said:
We were brought in to take what was wonderfully done in the first season and try to spin it a little. To give it a little bit of adrenaline. If the first season was all about our characters trying to figure out what they have, who they are, and how they fit in to what the big scene is, our season is about taking those skills that they learned and figuring out, 'What are we supposed to do with them now that we have them?' And put them on a bit of an adventure.
Falling Water started airing on USA Network back in September 2016. Over the course of the show's first 10 episodes, Remi Aubuchon says the "exciting and odd existential drama" followed Burton (David Ajala), Tess (Lizzie Brochere) and Taka (Will Yun Lee) as they realized they all shared unique powers tied to dreams. These three strangers were tied to each other, but also to a larger story that set up a number of questions that need to be explored in Season Two.
For example, the mystery of Tess' son, James, who we finally met as season one concluded. The new team DOES know the identity of James' father. (No, they didn't reveal it to us on the set!) But Aubucho did promise:
That will become an important thing, down the line of the season. There are a lot of secrets that are going to be revealed, and hopefully in a way that will be different and exciting and strange. ... If Tess' journey last season was about finding her son, this season is actually about finding herself. Finding out who she is. More unanswered questions about her child, and who hid him from her.
As Aubucho elabotated:
I felt that the first season, which was wonderful, created by my mentor, Henry Bromell, who sadly passed away before he was able to see the show produced -- I've known his themes well, which are all about contemplating existence. It was a somewhat intellectualized drama, in the first season. And we wanted to just take that and push some adrenaline into it. Since they set up the world very well in the first season, we just wanted to take full advantage of that and have a fun ride, open up the world a little more. Not all dreamers live in New York City. They live all over the world, and we wanted to open that up, too, and have some fun.
And one way that Falling Water plans to expand on that is to bridge the gap between the "real" world and the "dream" world more often. Aubucho told us:
We had so many conversations about that. ... Yes, our plan is to make sure that things that are happening in the dream world have consequences in the real world, and vice versa. So that we're not... there are some bad things that are happening that are happening both in the real world -- with real-world consequences -- but are being facilitated in the dream world. It's serious stuff that can only be solved in the dream world, but has real-world implications. ... People are dying. People are being murdered. In the real world, not just in the dream world. And I think it was very important to us to be able to weave those two worlds together as much as possible for the sake of drama.
The drama will continue when Falling Water begins its second season, under new leadership but with lofty and exciting goals, on Saturday, January 6, at 10 pm EST on USA Network.
