Blood & Treasure bosses on Kate Reece's agenda and the hunt for the Spirit Banner of Genghis Khan
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Blood & Treasure season 2 premiere.
Danny McNamara and Lexi Vaziri are on a new epic quest.
After finding the last of Karim Farouk's (James Callis) black market antiquities, Danny (Matt Barr) and Lexi (Sofia Pernas) quickly end up on a new adventure to find the Spirit Banner of Genghis Khan. Armed thieves attack the Vatican, and Jay Reece (John Larroquette), who has been trying to reach Danny, is killed in prison before he can provide important information. The clues they find lead them to Jay's daughter, Kate (Victoria Diamond), who also happens to be Danny's ex. The hunt revs up when Kate is kidnapped. Soon, Danny and Lexi reunite with Aiden Shaw (Michael James Shaw), bump into Lexi's irate former partner Violet (Michelle Lee), and have to escape a sticky situation involving a card game with crime syndicates from around the world. Eventually, Danny and Lexi discover that Kate wasn't really kidnapped, but isworking with the CIA and has her own agenda. Despite that development, the hunt continues — because a dangerous criminal who is consolidating power is also on the hunt.
We spoke to Blood & Treasure co-creators Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia about what Kate is up to, the mysterious new group entering the picture, and what Danny and Lexi will face next.
Paramount+
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Last season's ending left the future open-ended. How did you decide where the show would pick up in season 2?
STEPHEN SCAIA: It wasn't just finding the right artifacts to launch the episode. It was also thinking about the places in the world we want to see and didn't get to see in season 1. We wanted to bring out a different visual palette in season 2. So, season 1 was golden and centered in Western Europe and the Middle East; this season is a completely different one. It's green, and you see a lot more of Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, so it's a whole different part of the world that we get to see.
MATTHEW FEDERMAN: For me, it was like, if we're going to go to Asia, then what is the more interesting historical figure and artifacts from that [part of the world]? Genghis Khan is such a huge historical figure, so we started focusing on him pretty quickly, then the actual artifacts of the season came from there.
How does the second chapter of Blood & Treasure differ from the first?
FEDERMAN: The first season was so much about Danny and Lexi coming together again, so it was very much about trust. The big word for the second season was commitment. It's going to the next phase of the relationship, where it's different when two people are circling each other.
SCAIA: Season 1 was so tied to Danny's backstory and history. This season has a lot more of that with Lexi. The relationships from Lexi's past.
Why did you decide to kill Jay Reece and bring Kate into the story?
FEDERMAN: Part of the discussion of season 2, in terms of going to the next phase of a relationship, was talking about your exes to find out what went wrong in the past. We knew we wanted to bring an important figure from both of their worlds, so it made a lot of sense to tie that person to the Reece family because they are so important to Danny's story. It would make a lot of sense that that person would be the daughter of Jay Reece. We wanted to make sure that she would be very different from Jay, so we're not playing that beat again. Lexi has a lot of well-earned distrust for her because she's a Reece, but in the end, she's got a different agenda than what her father did.
Also, we didn't want to have the problem where he is kept alive in prison at the end of the first season, and then in the second season, he comes back out to start causing all new problems. We wanted to make sure that Jay wasn't the cause of the problems in season 2 and what made sense was killing him to play out the mystery of what he was into and what his relationship with [the bad guys] was. That ended up giving us the best story engine.
What's next for Kate and her plan, since we know she's not actually working with Danny and Lexi and is presumably working for the CIA?
FEDERMAN: Kate definitely has a moral code. It doesn't necessarily always align with what Danny and Lexi want to do. Jay Reece, in the end, had no real moral code other than what was good for him. The difference is, she understands serving her country and a mission, and she's willing to do whatever it takes to get that done. The question really becomes at what point is that going to become a problem for them? Whether she ends up being an ally or an antagonist for Danny and Lexi is something they'll find out.
We see Aiden and Chuck, but I'm assuming Simon Hardwick (James Callis) is out there. How does he fit into the puzzle this season?
FEDERMAN: Simon will be back and ... be another variable in the mix. What we wanted play with this season is that he is under a mask for most of season 1, so you don't actually meet the character until the finale. We thought it would be fun to bring him in early and to play him as you're actually getting to know Simon. You're getting to spend a lot of time with him and see him trying to get out of situations and turn things to his advantage. The audience is on the ride with him more this time.
Chuck [Mark Gagliardi] encounters a man he believes is part of the mysterious Vatican intelligence. How will they fit into the picture?
SCAIA: It's Google-able. Vatican Intelligence is a real thing. They have been operating in the shadows the way the Brotherhood of Serapis did, but as an actual, viable intelligence agency for the last few 100 years or so, operating under different names. It was a very interesting thing, so when we discovered that, it felt right to make them part of the show. They have their own mission inside of that and sometimes it aligned with our characters and sometimes it doesn't. That's always great for drama.
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Between the mysterious figure Chuck believes is Vatican Intelligence and his desire for adventure, what is our favorite priest getting into this season?
FEDERMAN: We love Mark Gagliardi and we love the character of Chuck. We wanted to pull him into the center of the story because in the first season we kept him around as a moral adviser and a Jiminy Cricket on the shoulders of both Danny and Lexi. The story comes to him when the Vatican is attacked and that gives him a mission from the start. His home was attacked, people he worked with were hurt and killed. He has a real need for justice and getting a resolution right from the beginning and that made it much easier. Chuck is driving his own story just as much as Danny and Lexi.
SCAIA: I would add Danny and Lexi are great together, but it's also great when you have Chuck and [Aiden] Shaw as different parts of their friend circle. Chuck is their moral adviser and Shaw is their emotional adviser. It's interesting to watch the two of them as their storylines develop over the season. Last season, they weren't necessarily all on the mission together, but this season you'll see a lot more of everyone being together.
Between Kate and Lexi's former partner Violet, we're seeing more of the central duo's past. What else will we learn about them this season?
FEDERMAN: You'll get more of a sense of how each of their pasts have led them to where they are. For instance, they both have commitment issues, but for very different reasons. Danny's reasons wouldn't be necessarily obvious, but the first season blew up his entire world. He found out everyone that he trusted, like Jay Reece, were lying to him. He's in this place where he loves Lexi, but he doesn't really trust people in the same way. It's surprising because the assumption would be Danny would want to move froward and Lexi would be holding back more. In the first season, Lexi realized her life was much better than she thought, there was a lot more love between her parents than she thought. Danny is the one who is holding back a little more.
Blood & Treasure season 2 airs Sundays on Paramount+.
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