For its second season, The Bridge is widening.
After following the serial-killer template of its Scandinavian forebear last season, the FX drama (returning Wednesday, 10 ET/PT), expands to explore a broad range of topics, from the sociopolitical subjects of drug cartels, immigration and poverty along the U.S.-Mexican border, and the personal relationships of its detectives, American Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) and her Mexican counterpart, Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir).
“It’s like a new show, in a way. It’s darker, it’s grittier. It’s a more complex show,” because the storylines interconnect, says Kruger. “We don’t follow one guy. It’s many different storylines.”
Sonya and Marco, who partnered to investigate last season’s cross-border killings, are estranged as Season 2 starts. Sonya is dealing with the aftershocks of her sister’s murder, while Marco “is right in the bottom of hell,” Bichir says. “When your son dies and then you lose your wife and daughters, then you are truly fearless. Marco has nothing to lose anymore. The characters go through a deeper, darker, emotional and psychological journey.”
Eventually, the two investigators — one from El Paso and the other from Juarez — reunite after a cartel member is found dead in the USA. But all is not resolved. “My relationship with Marco is really being tested because I come to understand his involvement with the cartels,” Kruger says.
Eleanor Nacht (Franka Potente), a shunned Mennonite who works for cartel boss Fausto Galvan (Ramon Franco), is a key addition to the new season.
“She’s basically an accountant for the cartel and her payment is revenge,” Potente says. “Fausto has something she really wants. She doesn’t care about money or dying, which makes her exceptionally dangerous.”
Bichir says he’s pleased with the show’s exploration of real issues along the border and its avoidance of simple answers.
“We don’t tag anyone, like ‘You are the good one. You are the bad one.’ We talk about corruption on both sides. We talk about immigration and why it’s our problem, (in both) the U.S. and Mexico,” he says.
Over the course of this season, Eleanor eventually comes into contact with the investigators, while reporters Daniel Frye (Matthew Lillard) and Adriana Mendez (Emily Rios) follow a money trail that eventually will intersect with law enforcement.
“The ambition this year is to tell a big, multipart story that has thriller and mystery elements and to see if we can hook the audience,” says executive producer Elwood Reid. “It’s about an ecosystem.”
Some elements, however, remain the same: “There is a lot of blood,” Kruger says. “There’s a lot of dead people.”
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1m6WekA
