With just three episodes left in Outcast’s first season, cast and creators of the show found lots to discuss at their San Diego Comic-Con panel on Saturday, July 23. Panelists included creator and executive producer Robert Kirkman, showrunner and executive producer Chris Black, alongside actors Patrick Fugit (Kyle Barnes), Philip Glenister (Reverend Anderson), Wrenn Schmidt (Megan Holter), Reg E. Cathey (Chief Giles) and Brent Spiner (Sidney). (Gabriel Bateman, who played Joshua Austin in the first episode, joined the cast on stage briefly, too.)
The crew covered the bases on how the comics influence the show, the writing process and so on, but there were a range of takeaways and teases for Season 2. Below, enjoy nine highlights from the question-and-answers session.
1. A happy future for Kyle?
Moderator Scott Aukerman asked Fugit if he hoped that his character Kyle would get to be happy by Season 2. Fugit answered smartly: “What do you think Robert? If Kyle’s happy, we don’t have a show, right?” Kirkman quickly deflated any plans for Kyle’s happiness in Rome: “You’re miserable until the very end,” he said. “And then I’m going to come to your house and make you miserable.”
2. Rev. Anderson, inspired by Brexit.
Aukerman queried Glenister about what it’s like to play a character, Rev. Anderson, who’s not good at his job. “It’s quite easy, actually,” the actor replied with a smile before explaining how his home country’s vote to leave the European Union, known as “Brexit,” has helped. “I just channel the negative energy from England into the Reverend so he comes out as a preacher who’s not very good at the exorcisms.”
3. All the details about Sidney.
Spiner took the opportunity to spill the beans about his ever-mysterious character Sidney: “He occasionally wears a hat,” he said, with a laugh. He did go on to explain a little more about the character: “Sidney is a mystery, that is what he represents right now,” Spiner said. “I think the mystery is going to unfold, and it does…next week’s episode, you learn a bit more about him. As the time goes on, the layers begin to peel away. And then I’ve been warned to not go further than that.”
4. Season 1’s influence on Season 2?
Has the reaction to Season 1 influenced the writing of Season 2 at all? Not according to Black—mostly because the writing staff had already been breaking down the second season before the first started. “The path was pretty set,” Black explained. “As I said before, we had been given this path by Robert.”
5. The show’s big questions…answered?
Auckerman tried his best to ask Kirkman about the show’s big mysteries—the merge? the goo?—but the creator wouldn’t reveal much. “These are questions you should all have, and these are all questions that will be answered eventually,” Kirkman said. “But not today at this panel. Chris knows a lot, but he doesn’t know everything. We’ve told some of the actors some of the things.” Reg E. Cathey added: “I don’t want to know. I want to know when I have to know as an actor, but I want it to be a surprise.”
6. Who will die?
Auckerman noted that Kirkman’s other TV show, The Walking Dead, veered from the comic books upon which it was based. Is that the plan for Outcast? Could anything happen on Outcast, too? “There’s not as much death in this show as there is in Walking Dead, but there is plenty, so all of these actors should be fearing for the lives of their characters at all times—I don’t want them to get comfortable,” Kirkman said. “There’s a lot of surprises along the way.”
Several of those surprises were teased in a trailer dropped at the panel that looks ahead to the final three episodes of Outcast. Watch it here:
7. Joshua’s return.
Another fan asked if Joshua—the young boy who was exercised in the show’s first episode—would return. (Reminder: The actor who played him, Gabriel Bateman, was in the audience and appeared on stage briefly.) Kirkman was coy in his response: “We love the character,” he said, “and we’d love to see what happens with that guy, yet.” Then he added, obviously joking: “We want Kyle to punch him some more.”
8. Comic book catch-up?
Yet another fan wanted to know: Is there any concern about the show moving faster than the comic? “I don’t really have any concern about that because issue 19 comes out next week,” Kirkman explained. “It certainly doesn’t catch up with that in any shape or form.”
9. A Walking Dead crossover?
A fan asked Kirkman if he’d consider an Outcast crossover episode with The Walking Dead. Kirkman didn’t seem to take the suggestion seriously, but he did take the opportunity to offer what’s sure to be a deadpan joke: “You’re spoiling the end of Season 1 of Outcast.”