Defiance EP Kevin Murphy Talks Tarr Drama & Kenya’s Return

Defiance - Season 2

We’re less than a week away from the season 2 premiere of Defiance! In anticipation of the season premiere, OHSOGRAY caught up with executive producer Kevin Murphy, who gave some tantalizing clues about what we can expect to see – including whether Kenya is really gone for good.

Alak is in a tough spot with his two domineering parents, is he going to be able to carve out his own niche?

I know, poor Alak. One of the things…two characters who are very close to my heart in the show are Alak and Tommy because they’re the only two characters in the entire show who behave and think the way the audience does. Everyone else is somewhat different and alien. But, Alak looks at the horrible things that his parents do and he’s rightfully appalled by it. Like last year when it dawned on him that his parents had set him up to betray his own buddy to achieve their means and to smear Nolan and ultimately knock Amanda out of office – he was just appalled and the disappointment and horror in his eyes were terrible. That was exactly the way the audience feels.

When we kick around Alak, one of the things I love about him is that we’re kind of kicking around the audience’s perspective. It’s like how would the audience feel if they were in this world and had to deal with all these strange things and didn’t have the great big gun that Nolan has, and didn’t have the knives that Irisa has. How would you deal with it? Because Alak doesn’t have a lot to go on and all he really wants to do is what the rest of want to do – sit at home and play video games, play some cool tunes, smoke a little weed, and maybe get it on with his girlfriend. That’s not in the cards for him and that’s the tragedy for him. He was a guy with such a low bar for happiness and it will forever be denied to him because of the family he just happened to be born into.

Unlike Stahma, Datak seems more reactionary than a long-term strategist, is that going to change at all for him?

It’s funny, you’re paraphrasing dialogue that appears later in season 2, so you’re barking up the right tree. There’s actually a specific scene with them in episode 11 that deals with exactly that. But you’re right. Stahma is a chess player; she thinks many, many moves in advance. Datak is a checkers player; he thinks about who he’s going to jump next. Both stratagems can be effective, but it makes it difficult to be married to a person who doesn’t think the same way you do cause they keep getting in each other’s way. The only way they’re going to succeed and the family’s going to avoid being fractured is if they learn to accept their differences and move forward. One of the big spines this season is the family story, the utter destruction and the war between the two factions of the Tarr family, and which also ropes in the McCawley family, and how they come out of it – or don’t come out of it – at the end. That’s a question that gets answered in episode 13.

Are we going to see Kenya again?

[Silence] Um… [Laughs] It depends on how much people want to see her. We’ll see.

Defiance season 2 premieres on June 19th at 8/7c on Syfy.