Outcast’s executive producer and creator gives insight into the sophomore season of his darkly mysterious show.
Cinemax: What can fans expect from Season 2?
Robert Kirkman: One of the central questions is: How far does this conspiracy go? Now that we have revealed that this is very much a town conspiracy, I think one really fun thing to do will be to explore who is working for the side of evil. Who have the demons gotten to? There will be some reveals along the way like, this guy is not a good dude, or oh, this person has been working against them the whole time.
Cinemax: How would you characterize this season?
Robert Kirkman: Darker, more intense, more mysterious, scarier… Scarier in that the story evolves to a place where you don’t know who to trust, you don’t know who’s out to get you. When danger is lurking around every corner, and it doesn’t have to be dark outside for you to see it, that makes things much scarier.
Cinemax: When it comes to the merge, how would you describe what’s at stake for mankind?
Robert Kirkman: It’s very clear even from Season 1 that the merge is something we should not let happen. It’s something very dangerous that is probably going to affect a good number of people, if not all people. And that should be fairly scary.
There’s certainly a lot of mystery surrounding it, what the ins and outs of it are, how it is that Kyle factors into achieving it, and what that means. We’re getting to a point where people will understand at least a little bit of what it is.
Cinemax: Do you consider Kyle Barnes a “dark hero?”
Robert Kirkman: Well, he is surrounded by darkness — it’s his world. And it’s something he has been plagued with since the beginning. This evil around him has been ever-present since a very young age.
He has to cross some lines that other people wouldn’t necessarily cross, and he has to go places that he probably knows he shouldn’t. And it is that darkness within him that allows him to cross those lines to get the job done, to a certain extent. So he’s not necessarily an anti-hero, but he’s not winning any popularity contests.
Cinemax: His brand of heroism takes darkness.
Robert Kirkman: And his brand of heroism hurts him. It’s not putting him in a better position in his life. It’s not helping him in any real way. But he continues to do it, because he’s driven, and because he knows it’s something he has to do to meet his end goal.