Showrunner Erica Saleh and the stars of the Peacock teen murder mystery dish on the new season. Plus, watch a clip from the new season.
The tables have turned on the Murder Club.
Season 2 of Peacock's One of Us Is Lying is mere hours away from premiering, and only ET has the exclusive sneak peek from the anticipated new season. The action picks up following the dramatic events of the finale, when Simon's killer and Addy's ex, Jake, is shot and killed after a confrontation in the woods. With Jake's blood on the Murder Club's hands -- literally -- their attempt to take their deadly secret to their graves becomes threatened when they all receive a concerning text from Simon Says, warning them that they know they killed Jake, even though the rest of Bayview believes he's run away.
Now that Murder Club are the ones with something to hide, instead of trying to clear their names, season 2 will put them to the ultimate test as the stakes get higher and deadlier with a new "Simon Says" wreaking havoc on their lives.
"The whole show gets a little darker, a little more mysterious," executive producer/showrunner Erica Saleh previews with ET. "I think for Murder Club, the big difference is that in season 1 they were really trying to clear their names of something that they didn't do. The mystery was really, are they going to be able to prove their innocence and find out who killed Simon? This time they're trying to hide something that they did do. The mystery is, are they going to be able to get away with it and find out who's threatening them? And how far are they going to go to protect this secret? It naturally goes into some darker territory because they've gone into darker personal journeys."
In the exclusive clip from season 2, suspicions are heightened as Addy, Brownyn, Nate, Cooper and Janae attempt to turn over a new leaf following the chaos of last year. But, as the scene alludes, they're not exactly in the clear at Bayview. (Remember, who actually pulled the trigger and killed Jake that night in the woods has yet to be revealed.)
"We're going to answer all the questions [viewers] had at the end of season 1 and launch into a mystery that I think is a little darker and a little more dangerous than what they experienced in season 1," Saleh promises.
As the cast previewed, the secret Murder Club is attempting to keep to themselves opens a whole can of worms and greatly impacts how they move about the world.
"We were innocent in season 1 and now we have this massive thing to hide and that makes you act from a very, very different place, us as the actors and from the characters' perspectives," Marianly Tejada, who portrays Brownyn, previews. "It does something in you and it kind of changes your chemistry a little bit. We see them be more bold, but also freer and the stake are higher. That's the biggest difference."
Chibuikem Uche, who plays Cooper, observed that the constant threat of Simon Says in the new season adds another layer of tension that didn't exist in season 1. "Now that they're being blackmailed by Simon Says, there's a 'comply at all costs' sort of attitude because the fear or the risk of being exposed, it's too great of a threat. They almost feel more at the mercy of Simon Says."
"The characters have to learn to trust one another a whole lot more," Cooper van Grootel, aka Nate, says. "There was not as much trust in season 1 and we're all, I guess, turning on one another. We thought that maybe the people that we were close to were the ones that committed this crime [of killing Simon]. But now we've all been through this traumatic experience together and with Simon Says looming over above, we have to work together in order to figure it out -- with so many other outside noises and opinions creeping in and this ticking time bomb that we have to also be cautious of."
"This season just feels so different because this season they actually did something very wrong and the stakes are just that much higher because you don't know what or who is playing with them," Annalisa Cochrane, aka Addy, notes. "It's funny because when we were reading the scripts, it feels like it's in the same world, in the same show but the circumstances do feel different while still having a cohesive through-line. I'm excited for people to see it because I think you're going to be on the edge of your seat."
The cast disclosed that they were told who the culprit behind Simon Says was at the start of the season, admitting that the reveal was quite a shock to the system. They promised, however, that the revelation will all make sense in time.
"It was definitely a shocker, but more so in the way that everything happens -- not just who the person is, but how it all happened definitely was a shocker," Tejada hints. "It did, from that point on when we found out, inform the choices that we made because the goal is to serve this story and when you know the journey, you can just walk it better."
"Yeah, it was a major surprise though. It was like, 'What? This person? It's crazy!' Yeah, in for a shock," Van Grootel teases, adding that the person behind Simon Says is coming from "a place of pain and a place of hurt." "It takes a certain sort of character to really control and manipulate people in this way. And I think it's very much justified too. Once you see, as the story goes on and the show goes on, you see how it's justified. But there's all these outside things happening that puts a lot of pressure on these characters to really perform under pressure. They're in a lot of trouble and they have to be able to navigate that space and not crack under the pressure."
Season 2 of One of Us Is Lying drops Thursday, Oct. 20 on Peacock.
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