We saw Ephraim start drinking again in the first season finale. Cuse previewed that we’ll see the Corey Stoll character as a "highly functional drunk and so we wanted to put a different spin on it and certainly Corey didn’t want to do another version of what he had done on [House of Cards]." However, both producers said to watch for Eph to grow darker.

Did you think Kelly was a goner once she became a vampire? Think again, as Eph’s ex-wife is very much a part of this season. "I think she’s the best vampire we have on the show," said Cuse. He also praised Natalie Brown for her portrayal: "She can do the full vampire thing but sort of embody Kelly." He added that Kelly will not lose her desire to get back her son, Zach, and will get more deceptive in her methods: "She’s relentless in her pursuit of Zach and that’s a big part of the narrative this year."

We met the ancients at the end of season one when Gus came face to face with them. Once we finally meet Quinlan, we’ll find that he "really is the first guy who kind of approaches the ancients as an equal. He’s not intimidated by them, he’s not afraid of them," Cuse said. "The ancients are kind of peripheral. They’re important, they are significant but really we see mainly this season the initiation of Quinlan as their advocate kind of fighting the fight for them."

Cuse explained why the Latino character is important to the show: "It’s just not a guy that we’ve necessarily have seen a lot of in television. He’s really a heroic guy. He’s a very flawed guy, he’s been in prison [and] he’s not accomplished much positive in his life and suddenly here he’s actually given a chance to play a significant difference in the fate of the world. And just watching that journey for the character is really interesting."

The revitalized Palmer needs a new assistant and he finds one in Coco Marchant. Cuse see it as "kind of [a] reverse Pygmalion story because Palmer is a guy who has been sick his whole life, has actually never had a relationship with a woman. So he hires this attractive and intelligent 30-year-old French assistant… for him he’s discovering kind of all these aspects of life that he’s never seen."