Season two of WGN America's Manhattan will bring a lot of changes, especially now that the scientists at Los Alamos are just about ready to test the world's first nuclear weapon on the series.
With their vision for the bomb finally becoming a reality, season two will test the relationships on the base, particularly for those characters who struggle with the morality of building the atomic bomb and how that impacts them as individuals, as well as how that affects their marriages and other relationships.
In an interview with Tech Times, Manhattan cast members Ashley Zukerman, Rachel Brosnahan, Olivia Williams and John Benjamin Hickey discussed the changes in their characters that viewers will see in season two, as well as how the Trinity Test—the world's first detonation of a nuclear weapon—affects the relationships of the characters on the series.
Season one brought turmoil to the marriage of the Isaacs – Abby (Brosnahan) and Charlie (Zukerman) – while they lived on the base in Los Alamos. Season two continues to test their commitment to each other.
"It's an expansion on season one," said Brosnahan. "Obviously, we're still in the same place, physically. And on so many levels, we need each other. And on so many levels, we don't want to. You'll see an even bigger roller-coaster this season as they're grappling with things individually in a way that they weren't in season one."
Abby and Charlie also faced individual challenges in season one as they struggled to find their place with each other. But Brosnahan and Zukerman assure viewers that their marriage is still intact, especially now that Abby knows about what the scientists at Los Alamos are up to.
"I think the things that bind them and the things that separate them still exist as they did at the beginning of season one, only we see those separations expand completely," said Zukerman. "But at the center of it, there is still this foundation of incredible love and companionship that they have: they just test it to the extreme in this season."
The marriage of Frank (John Benjamin Hickey) and Liza (Olivia Williams) also gets extremely tested in season two. At the end of season one, Frank gets hauled off by the military, and at the beginning of season two, he's gone.
"Frank has always felt like an outsider, but now that he finds himself literally on the outside of this bubble, it's a real problem," said Hickey. "He's always known how to work as an outsider from the inside, but now he has to try to get back inside. And he can't get back to his wife: they're separated for a lot of very specific reasons—I won't go into them. His challenges are tenfold this season. At least he had access to his family last year, even though he couldn't really communicate with them. This year, he finds himself physically separated, as well as emotionally, on every level."
This also affects Liza and her relationship with Frank. At the end of season one, he confessed to her, although she wasn't really there to hear his full confession. But because Liza now knows about what's going on, she believes that means that Frank wants to leave the project.
"The assumption is in Liza's head that if one had the opportunity to leave, they would do so, knowing now what we know," said Williams. "Because at the end of season one, Frank told Liza what they were building, and her assumption is, 'well, great, so if we can leave, let's go.' And I think that's the thing in marriages, when each person makes an opposite assumption, and the moment when you realize that you have an absolutely opposite stance on something. That makes for an extremely explosive scene in many ways."
"There are a lot of reasons to get the hell out of there," said Hickey. "But neither of them are able to do it for a lot of great reasons that you find out about this season. But if things were tough in the marriage last year, wait until you see this season."
Of course, there's also something else the couples on the series have to deal with: they're building what will become the first weapon of mass destruction. And because these scientists have already committed to the bomb, with the Trinity Test coming up this season, it tests everyone's sense of morality.
"If this was a car on the highway, the foot's on the floor," said Williams. "And the people are having to make incredibly complex ethical decisions quickly—which is a disaster, as we all know. It's fascinating to see each character have their own stance, be they Communist sympathizers, be they Jewish, be they American born and raised, or a pacifist or a scientist. Everybody has their stance."
This creates a certain kind of conflict for every character on the series, creating what Hickey referred to as a "runaway train."
"The writers have created a historical fiction," said Hickey. "This series is not docudrama: it's not the story of the iconic figures of that time and place. So they're able to take what we know now about letting that genie out of the bottle and let it play out inside that sanctioned suburb that was Los Alamos. So the moral paradox is that we're building this thing that will save the world, but that could also destroy the world."
However, for some characters, the decision is easier because that runaway train has already left the station: there's no turning back for them.
"In season one, Abby wasn't aware, but was inherently affected by the morality that Charlie and others were struggling with associated with it," said Brosnahan. "But I think in season two, you see people, as we approach the test, forced to make decisions about how they feel and stick to them in a way that we didn't. And we had more time to grapple with it in season one."
Zukerman agreed and pointed out that for the scientists tasked with building the bomb, questions about the morality of it were probably laid aside.
"I think for this thing to have been built at all, people mustn't have questioned what they were doing: it took too much time to question it," said Zukerman. "And it doesn't matter how much they questioned it, there was still this deadline of the Germans building this thing that if we don't get it first, someone else will. So there's this constant battle between morality and just truth—or as they believed to be truth—that we need to get it first. Charlie, in the first season, grappled with the morality of this thing, but by the second season, he's invested in that second truth, what he believes as truth."
Manhattan season two premieres on WGN America on Oct. 13.
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