Peacock‘s Crystal Lake, which takes place nearly a decade before the events of the original Friday the 13th, wrapped up its major questions by season’s end while leaving the door ajar for future slaughter, courtesy of Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini) and Jason Voorhees.
Familiar faces like Ralph (Nick Cordileone) and Deputy Dorf (Cameron Scoggins) don’t quite align with their Friday the 13th filmic counterparts just yet, though they’re well on their way thanks to the events of Crystal Lake’s inaugural season.
That gap will narrow even further should the series get renewed for a second season, showrunner Brad Caleb Kane (“IT: Welcome to Derry”) told Bloody Disgusting in a new chat.
“We are only just beginning to see who they are,” he explains. “We come to television to really spend time with people and to bring them into our homes and to get to know them. That’s the great thing about TV. In the movies, you can have a crazy Ralph just be the prophet of doom. He’s there for a little comic relief; Dorf is there for just a little comic relief.”
“But if we’re doing a show called Crystal Lake,” Kane says, “you want to delve into the eccentric characters in the town a little bit more. There is a little bit of a Twin Peaks thing to it, and that’s part of the fun. I did want to find some of those archetypal ’70s ideas, ’70s characters and ’70s interests to ascribe to some of these people. That early ’70s thing, the human potential movement was happening.“
Kane continues, “So it’s interesting to me that somebody like Rita (Joy Suprano), who’s, in today’s parlance, sex positive, would be looking for meaning wherever she could find it, whether it was in various partners or whether it was in these seminars to grow as a person, to grow beyond what she considers the provincial nature of Crystal Lake. That seemed like a character I’ve met before.
“Same thing with Dorf. He’s the guy who wants to be larger than he is. He wants to get out of his father’s shadow. His father is an old-school Jersey racist, and he’s not, but he’s fighting those feelings within himself and sort of throwing himself into some of the hobbies of the time. The martial arts thing was booming. He’s trying to find his own identity, just like Pam is trying to find her own identity, just like the country at this time is trying to find its identity, coming out of the identity crisis of the late ’60s and early ’70s.“
That won’t just extend to the returning F13 characters, but Crystal Lake originals, too.
“Because you don’t see it at the end of season one, I will just say it flat out, Officer Brooks survives. Chief Brooks survives. He’s okay,” Kane confirms of William Catlett’s sympathetic Sheriff.
Kane’s confirmation also reveals that he considers Brooks the series’ ultimate hero. “He’s got his guy Dorf there who’s looking out for him, and he’s okay. But in terms of where we would take him in season two, he’s our leading man. Will’s our leading man. Will is a classic leading man, and I wanted that tall, dark, literally tall, dark, and handsome leading man. He’s our Sidney Poitier, and I wanted a little bit for Will. We talked about Poitier; we talked about Gary Cooper, him having that sort of stoic, staunch, you know, the guy that everybody can rely on, but who is suffering all of the small indignities of being a Black man and a Black police chief in small-town America, with dignity and class. As much as those tiny paper cuts hurt him, he is pure class, and I think Will really embodies that. So, going into a season two, I don’t know what we would do with him specifically. I have ideas, but he would certainly be in danger again. But no, we’re not looking to kill Chief Brooks.“
It’s not just more Brooks that a second season would double down on, but even more carnage and more Sackhead Jason. The series’ showrunner also hints at more Friday the 13th characters he’d love to bring into the mix but remains tight-lipped for now on WHO.
“If we’re lucky enough to get a season two, I already sort of have a framework in my mind. I do know thematically what I want to touch on, which is a little bit different than part one.
“I do know that I want there to be a whole hell of a lot more of Sackhead Jason, I’ll tell you that. I want there to be a whole lot more carnage.”
“But in terms of other characters that I want to touch on, there are, and there are people that we haven’t necessarily seen in the first season, but people who might be very well known from the franchise that I do want to dig into,” Kane teases.
“Crystal Lake” is now streaming only on Peacock.
