The second season of Syfy’s horror series Chucky kicked off with a bang this week. Showrunner/creator Don Mancini and the main cast teased what’s to come at New York Comic Con today: There will be oodles of trauma, new characters, and a cheeky homage to Jennifer Tilly’s 1996 crime thriller Bound in Episode 4.
Season 2 of Chucky picks up a few months after the titular killer doll’s Hackensack rampage, and Jake (Zackary Arthur) is living with a new family following the gruesome death of his own. After Jake’s younger foster brother Gary literally explodes at the hands of Chucky, Jake, his now-boyfriend Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), and frenemy Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) are sent not to prison, but Catholic school — which also happens to be the boarding home where the franchise’s infamous Charles Lee Ray grew up. This location is the main backdrop of Season 2, and Mancini says that he drew from his own experiences of growing up gay and Catholic.
Season 2 is also upping the ante by introducing a bunch of new characters. Devon Sawa is returning to the cast as Father Bryce, a Catholic school priest who bears a striking likeness to Jack’s father and uncle — both of whom died in the previous season. “Keep watching,” Sawa said when asked if the uncanny resemblance would be pointed out by any of the characters this season. Mancini also teased that Father Bryce would serve as the personification of some upcoming friction between Jake and Devon.
Lachlan Watson from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has joined the cast this season in the dual roles of Glen and Glenda Ray — Chucky’s twin children first introduced in Child’s Play and later referenced canonically in the show’s previous season. Glen and Glenda will be working closely with Father Bryce and Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) this season with the twins’ motives mainly being to “stir shit up,” per Watson.
Bella Higginbotham will play Nadine, who is introduced in the season’s upcoming second episode. “I think she really is a very intelligent person,” Higginbotham said of her character. “She wouldn’t trust people as far as she could throw them.” Nadine is also a bit of a kleptomaniac, which Higginbotham says will come up later in the season.
Returning characters are dealing with their own trajectories this round, following the fallout of Chucky’s first season. Mancini promised that Jake and Devon will have some conflict, and that he couldn’t give the couple a happy ending just yet. Arnarson says that fans will be surprised at Devon’s newfound courage since he “grew some balls.”
Meanwhile, Lexy will be turning to some dark places following the massacre at the Frankenstein screening last Halloween and feels completely alone while dealing with her awful family. “This season we dive into the deeper trauma. The trauma below the trauma,” said Lind.
The Chucky franchise has been kicking for decades, and Mancini has no signs of stopping. Mancini teased his plans for the Chucky-verse, joking that he has an “inexhaustible supply of ideas” of where he could take the killer doll and his tribulations in a web of connected formats à la the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Mancini said that he would love to continue working on the series as well as produce future film installments and television spinoffs — as long as the fans are interested. “Please keep watching,” he asked.
Chucky is currently airing its second season every Wednesday on SyFy.
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.