Audiences will return to coastal Canada with the Season 2 premiere of Fox‘s Murder in a Small Town on Tuesday night and, per its stars, should expect a deeper romance, more political intrigue and several new characters to boot.
Cassandra (Kristin Kreuk) has officially been elected to the town council, Kreuk affirmed, answering one of the big questions that remained at the end of Season 1. But, another question still remains: How will her political ambitions impact her relationship with police chief Karl Alberg (Rossif Sutherland)?
“Cassandra was, and always has been, very focused on her small community that she came [to] back for a reason, and it’s a place that she really wants to make better and enrich. She did it through the library for the longest time. Towards the end of last season, she started to really want this art center, and to see that she could only do that through Council, she started to pursue that avenue,” Kreuk explained in a recent interview with Deadline.
Now that she’s been elected, “she is trying to accomplish what she wants for the community, which is a social safety net and some arts funding…whilst at the same time the police department needs funding, needs more people, because Carl’s jurisdiction has been expanded. So her ambitions are very much trying to accomplish the ends that she set out to achieve, but coming up against a whole bunch of roadblocks, the mayor being one of them, and the money situation of the town being another.”
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Naturally, Cass’ newfound role creates some tension with Karl. Or, what Sutherland describes as “a butting of heads, just for the practicalities of his needs.”
Murder in a Small Town expanded its cast for Season 2, adding a slew of new characters, including Bethany Brown as Corporal Laila Jackson, a talented cop with a lot of baggage who used to work with Karl in Minneapolis. Her character description teases quite an ominous path in Season 2, warning that “the overload caused by the [Gibson police] department’s critical understaffing will begin to take a toll threatening to set loose all of [her] old demons.”
That critical understaffing will certainly be Karl’s main priority in Season 2, Sutherland explains, as it puts his officers in danger in more ways than one.
“I’m endangering my people by not having this money,” he says, adding: “Cassandra has her hand in actually being able to provide me those funds by passing a budget through.”
But, while Cass and Karl might not always see eye-to-eye, fans can expect them to work through it as a couple, the stars said. Sutherland continues, “There’s still a bit of a tiptoeing. There’s still a dance, because it’s all so delicate and complicated, but it’s all on top [of a] foundation of love.”
Murder in a Small Town premieres Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox. The logline for the premiere, though vague, also teases of what’s to come: “During a heated argument between a husband and wife, things get out of control; Cassandra wins the final council seat in Gibsons, but Mayor Holman makes Karl Alberg an offer that would interfere with Cassandra’s plans.”