'Colony' Season 2, The Complete Guide

Colony on USA proved to be an apt sequel to the network’s unexpected summer hit Mr. Robot: full of ambiguity and surprising moral complexity. But more importantly, it reveled in withholding more information than it disclosed. The show had an impressionistic quality, persisting under the assumption it could string viewers along — and give them nowhere near the amount of information they craved. As an underhyped serial, prestige-y drama, Colony only maintained a modest viewership, but it was relatively consistent, with a dropoff in the middle, and then a resurgence as the tension built in the final three episodes.

It would have been easier to know what could be coming in Season 2 just prior to the conclusion of the Season 1 finale. Everything had been setting us up for a seismic shift in the fate of Will (Josh Holloway) and Katie’s (Sarah Wayne Callies) bloc, but with Will able to deliver the (admittedly damaged) VIP at the last second, it seemed like peace was — tenuously — restored between the Hosts, the Occupation, and the citizens of central L.A.

There was [the morbid desire for more serious wrath to be incurred, if only to force the writers to reveal the angry overlords to us. But instead, the episode ends with a dissipation of our central cast. Will is off to beyond the bloc to find their lost son Charlie, awash somewhere in the streets of Santa Monica. Proxy Snyder (Peter Jacobson) is out of a job, Bram (Alex Neustaedter) is in custody, Maddy (Amanda Righetti) and the other Bowman children are being brainwashed in style the Green Zone by Lindsay (Erin Way). Katie is all alone at home, without a cause to fight for.

We can assume then, that Season 2 will be more of a mess in terms of following separate storylines, with diminished prospects for them intersecting. Here’s a breakdown of the threads the season will likely focus on:

• It doesn’t seem like Will’s trip to the Santa Monica bloc could be an easy pop-in, pop-out operation, and finding Charlie — and perhaps dealing with him — will likely not be an easy prospect. Co-showrunner and creator Carlton Cuse teased to The Hollywood Reporter after the season finale:

“Early on in the second season, we’ll pick [Will’s] storyline up and find out whether or not he finds Charlie. Everything Will has done is driven by his desire to get his kid back. He’s determined to finish what he started.”

• If anyone���s likely to see the aliens, it’s probably the children, through Bram’s storyline, possibly, on one of the Hosts’ lunar-area work camps, or Grace — in her privileged position — in the course of learning about the alien’s ultimate plan for Earth.

“Broussard tells [Katie] earlier in the season: Once you’re in, you’re in.’ It’s a little like Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III. Katie will find it hard to extricate herself from the resistance and the obligations she formed there.”

There are some characters it’s unclear we’ll see again: Snyder, Broussard (Tory Kittles), and Beau (Karl Weathers).

• A Broussard reappearance seems possible, because it’s not clear that he’s left the bloc. But it’s also not clear if he actually made a safe exit from the resistance hideout. He and Katie shared an unspoken farewell, but perhaps, for lack of anything better to do, they will reunite and find a way to push forward with operations — that is, if they don’t decide they’ve done enough damage already.

• Beau seems like someone it’s unlikely we’ll pick up with again; perhaps, though, we’ll get a glimpse or two of his remote cabin life. Maybe he won’t have made it there in the first place, however; few dreams become realized in Colony unless the government lets them be.

• Snyder’s character has always had the air of someone who was doomed to be a casuality of the system; I’m surprised he wasn’t assassinated by the forces he served during the last season, for ineffectiveness or learning too much. Whether there are plans for Snyder remains to be seen, but Cuse has ominous predictions for his replacement (could it be an actual alien??)

“Needless to say, I don’t want to say too much about our plans for the new Proxy, because that’s very much on the train to spoiler-ville, but the new Proxy is very different from Snyder. That’s all I can say.”

If Colony didn’t exactly give viewers what they yearned for last season, it at least gave fans a reason to keep watching — if they remember the show by the time Season 2 comes around. There is after all, altogether too much TV drama to get absorbed by.

I think we can trust that creators Cuse and Condal will allow us to peer a bit more behind the veil of the Hosts in upcoming episodes. The only question is: Are we willing to wait around? But Cuse’s words are encouraging, in terms of the prospect of concrete answers:

“It feels like we can explore the concept of colonization in new ways, and amp up the science fiction quotient, while staying focused on this family and their fate. The show started well, and it’s on an exciting growth path.”