[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Orphan Black: Echoes Season 1 finale “We Will Come Again.”]
Darros (James Hiroyuki Liao) just got a couple wins against Kira (Keeley Hawes) and the printouts she made of her late wife, Lucy (Krysten Ritter), Jules (Amanda Fix), and Eleanor (Rya Kihlstedt) to end the first season of Orphan Black: Echoes. What makes that even harder? The show has yet to be renewed for a second season.
To quickly recap: Kira and Eleanor discover that Darros had those 12 anonymous scans to create younger versions of the most talented minds of last generation—and Kira is the last they identify. Meanwhile, Lucy is shocked when Darros kills Jules right in front of her, only to reveal another young printout played by Fix, a blonde.
After that, “I think it’s going to be a complicated series of episodes for Lucy when we come back for Season 2,” creator, showrunner, writer, and executive producer Anna Fishko tells TV Insider. “She’s going to be pulled in a lot of different directions.”
Below, Ritter, Kihlstedt, and Fishko address our burning questions and tease what could be ahead in Season 2.
Why was Jules killed off?
As Lucy and Jules are making their way out of the building at which Darros’ summit is held, they come face-to-face with Darros. He tells Jules she has so much potential he tried to nurture and things would’ve worked out—if Lucy hadn’t filled her head with ideas. As he sees it, Jules has been corrupted, and to solve that “problem,” he kills her. (“That moment is so intense. Amanda just stole my heart,” recalls Kihlstedt.) He doesn’t kill Lucy because, he tells her, his theory is that some people are only at their best when everything around them is at its worst.
Ritter agrees that Darros just gave Lucy the motivation she’s going to need to stop him. “That ending was wild. I had heard that that was going to happen, but until you’re there on the day filming—and because I had grown to love Amanda so much, and Lucy loves Jules so much, that was pretty horrible,” she says. “And James is such a fantastic actor. That was a tough scene to shoot and shocking.”
Fishko explains, “We wanted to have a little fun with the end. And I think it’s a really interesting way for the audience to experience the basic premise of the show, which is that we lose Jules, who we spent the whole season with, and we don’t feel the same way about the new Jules who steps into the show because they’re not the same to us.”
Who is this new Jules print-out played by Amanda Fix?
After killing the Jules we’ve known all season, Darros introduces Lucy to a new, blonde Jules. This printout “hasn’t been in the world that long yet,” reveals Fishko. “She’s a fresh print.” With her introduction, “It’s an interesting way for us to emotionally experience this basic premise of, can you just replace someone? Well, no, we’ve spent all this time with this person. We have all these memories and emotions and we have a relationship with them, and we don’t have that with this new person,” the EP points out. “It’s going to be an interesting kind of story to try and figure out, how do we develop a new relationship with this new person, and is it going to be the same or different?”
Sophie Giraud / AMC
Why did Darros print out a younger Kira? Could Skyar Wexler return?
Darros introduces, at his summit presentation, the kids of the Genius Project. But it’s not until Eleanor sits down with Kira at home near the end of the episode that we find out the ID of the last scan that was corrupted and had to be cleaned up: Kira. Does that mean that Skyler Wexler, who played Kira on Orphan Black, could return to play a younger printout?
“I don’t know. That’s a complicated question. Anything’s possible,” admits Fishko.
But when it comes to Darros printing out a new Kira, “it makes sense,” the EP continues, “because he knows she’s so smart and she’s so capable, and I think it was a set of scans that he knew he wanted and had access to presumably. So I think it’s also sort of interesting comeuppance for Kira to have to experience the same thing that Eleanor’s now experienced.”
Will there be an Orphan Black: Echoes Season 2?
After that ending, there needs to be one to answer all our burning questions and see what happens next! Plus, there are more characters that Ritter, Fix, and Kilhstedt could play…
“We will have to wait and see,” Ritter says. “I’m not privy to any of that, but yeah, I think within the world of clones, there are many stories to tell”
Could Tatiana Maslany appear in a Season 2?
Kira is the adult version of clone Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) daughter from the original Orphan Black. Jordan Gavaris and Evelyne Brochu reprised their roles of Felix and Delphine in the first season. Sarah and fellow clone Cosima were both mentioned. But how much would a second season lean into the original? As much? More? Less?
“I think a little bit has to do with availability,” Fishko shares. “We would love to have an opportunity to bring Tatiana, if she’s available. She wasn’t really, her schedule didn’t really line up with ours, unfortunately, for the first season. But yeah, I think it a little bit has to do with where the story goes in Season 2, which we’re just really starting to talk about.”
Sophie Giraud / AMC
Could Lucy have a future with Jack and Charlie?
Lucy says goodbye to her boyfriend, Jack (Avan Jogia), and his daughter, Charlie (Zariella Langford), in the finale, but she’s hopeful she could have a future with them, says Ritter.
“I think that she, in her strength and conviction, would like to, yeah,” according to the star and executive producer. “It’s tough, right? Maybe letting them go is for their best in truth, but she loves him. I think that she is really trying to do it all.”
What does the future look like for Kira and Eleanor?
It was a rocky road for the spouses this season. Prior to the beginning of the series, Eleanor had Alzheimer’s and died. Then, Kira printed out the younger version, Lucy, who didn’t retain her memories. Then it was revealed that Kira printed out another version of Eleanor, only two years younger than she was when she died. This Eleanor learned the truth—and, it turns out, had been having an affair—and the women agreed to work together for the benefit of the printouts. At the end of the finale, as Eleanor told Kira about Darros printing out a version of her, she also said that she was ready to start something new with her. So what does that look like?
“I don’t know what new looks like,” says Kilhstedt. “I mean, I think if we get to keep exploring this, that, to me, will be a whole part of what’s really fascinating moving forwards, is how you take apart, rebuild, redefine a relationship that was two different marriages so far, right? I think that’s the bigger, darker, more complicated real story actually about marriage just heightened. I mean, is it Esther Perel who says that every marriage is made up of many marriages within that, if you can see that and reinvent yourself in your marriage each time. I think that’s fascinating. And it’s so many women writing and creating this and looking at marriage and aging, and I think that’s what’s fascinating coming up if we’re allowed.”
She has asked Fishko about where the show could be going (but hasn’t gotten any answers). “In my mind, there are so many directions of the life piece of it, like marriage, how you rebuild, but then there’s also the opportunity for a lot of clones, a lot of different directions, a lot of humans that can tie in some ways back to where the original got born and started,” she says.
What did you think of the finale? Do you want to see a second season of Echoes? Let us know in the comments section, below.