Into The Badlands: What’s Up With Your Favorites As AMC’s Martial Arts Spectacle Returns

Into the Badlands The Widow Carlos Serrao/AMC
Into the Badlands — Emily Beecham as The Widow

Expect a six-month time jump when AMC’s eye-popping martial arts fantasy Into the Badlands debuts its second season this month.

“We like the idea of letting people settle into their new places and allowing the world to recover a little bit from the events of the end of Season 1,” explains Alfred Gough, who created the show with his longtime producing partner Miles Millar. “We see our characters scattered across the Badlands and into other areas as well and we also introduce new characters. For us, this season was all about expanding the world.” Gough and Millar reveal where you’ll find some of your favorites as a new day dawns on the Badlands.

Sunny
“This season, Sunny [Daniel Wu] wants to find Veil [Madeleine Mantock] and their child, so he’s literally trying to get back into the Badlands,” says Gough. “He starts the season in these mines, which are in what we call the ‘outlying territories,’ and he meets a character named Bajie, who is played by Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead). They form this partnership, as Sunny’s trying to get back into the Badlands and Bajie claims he has a way to do that. But can he trust him? You get to see a different side of Sunny, which is a lot of fun.”

M.K.
“M.K. [Aramis Knight] has been taken by a group we call the Abbots to a distant monastery, where he discovers that there are other people who have a similar power to his,” says Millar. “Here, he finds a chance to potentially control that power — and then he discovers that there’s something else going on, and there’s a darker purpose to the Abbots.”

The Widow and Tilda
“They repaired their relationship,” Gough reveals. “Tilda [Ally Ioannides] is now the Widow’s [Emily Beecham] regent, her No. 1 Butterfly. She’s really behind her mother’s quest to bring freedom to the Badlands. [The Widow] was looking to bring equality to break the system, which, of course, puts her at odds with the other barons. Now she has to become, frankly, a political leader. In order to get what she wants, does it start to corrupt her or her values?”

Waldo
“At the end of last season, we revealed that Waldo [Stephen Lang] was the Widow’s inside man at the fort,” Gough says. “Obviously, Quinn had kicked him to the curb; with the Widow, he feels like he has a role. He’s sort of her consigliere. I think it also makes it very interesting that her inner circle involves a teenage girl and a handicapped man. It shows that she’s progressive — and also Waldo has a lot to offer. He’s a survivor. He knows the ins and outs of the barons. It’s like having a good secretary of state for her.”

Lydia
“When we meet Lydia [Orla Brady] at the beginning of the season, she has been with the Totemists with her father and thinks she’s found peace,” says Gough. “But the Badlands, in its own way, always comes calling. She has an interesting journey, because she’s always been, in one sense or another, defined by the men around her, whether it’s her father, whether it was Quinn, whether it’s her son. She really comes into her own this season.”

Into the Badlands Season 2 airs Sundays at 10/9c beginning March 19 on AMC

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Lori just hasn't been the same since "thirtysomething" and "Northern Exposure" went off the air.