Ahead of the show’s return on Oct. 14, the cast and crew of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency took to the Main Stage of New York Comic Con on Friday to talk Season 2. The show’s stars – Samuel Barnett (Dirk Gently), Elijah Wood (Todd), Hannah Marks (Amanda), Jade Eshete (Farah), Mpho Koaho (Ken) and Fiona Dourif (Bart) – accompanied creator Max Landis following a screening of the first episode.
Based (loosely) on a series of novels by sci-fi legend Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently took us by surprise at NYCC last year: this show is weird AF, and makes no apologies for it. You’ll either love it or come away scratching your head (and possibly concerned you may have eaten some hallucinogenic mushrooms). Possibly both.
Season 2 is essentially “a completely different show,” Landis told fans at NYCC. This time around, the series draws inspiration from the second of Adams’ Dirk Gently books, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. “It’s insane. It’s pants-down, shirt-on-head, high on amphetamine, Norse god lunacy. So I knew every season of this show had to up the stakes a little bit.”
Last we saw, Dirk, Todd and Farah had brought the Lydia Spring case to a successful conclusion, and everything seemed to be going just fine for the newly minted members of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. That is, until government agents involved with the mysterious Project Black Wing start cracking skulls all over the place. The agents captured Dirk, surrounded Ken and Bart and caused Amanda to flee with one of the (four) members of the Rowdy 3.
Wood says that his character starts the new season in a rough patch. “Todd’s struggling with being an asshole in his past and it kind of creeps up again. But under pressure, that guy delivers. He’s not cut out for this, but actually, he is.”
The second season moves away from the sci-fi and time-travel elements of the debut season, embracing the fantasy genre this time around. A dangerous force known as the Mage from the faraway, color-soaked realm of Wendimoor makes its way to Earth and it’s up to Dirk and his friends to stop it. Also, there’s gonna be scissor swords!
“I kept googling ‘scissor sword’ and all I could find was an anime called Kill la Kill. And she only uses one of the blades so it’s just a normal fucking sword,” Landis explained.
“I remember talking about that scene in Eastern Promises with you, where Viggo Mortensen is fighting completely naked in a sauna. Max was like, ‘what if there were scissors, though?'” Marks chimed in.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the official Dirk Gently Season 2 trailer below.
Season 2 of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency debuts on BBC America on Oct. 14 at 9 p.m. EDT. In the meantime, you can catch up on Season 1 on Hulu.
