The Strain season 1 finale was set for Sunday night as FX has already renewed the show for another season.
Some plot spoilers have emerged for the next season after the renewal announcement.
Executive producer Guillermo del Toro told Collider that the show will probably last for three to five seasons as he give insight into what to expect in season 2.
“The second and third book were very compressed. If you read them, they go to flashbacks. We learn Setrakian’s story up to the ‘40s, in the first season. In the second season, you’ll learn his story as a child, and how he first learned of The Master. And then, you think you see the origin of The Master, until you end up tracking it to thousands of years before,” he said.
“As you go forward in the story, you go back in the mythology. When Setrakian is asked about Eichhorst, he says, ‘I knew him before when he was human, but equally monstrous.’ And then, there is that moment when Eichhorst is talking while he’s drunk, and he says that we all submit to a greater will. That’s where the series is heading, and the books head. It’s a very dark scenario about how easy it is to submit our will, if we are told that’s the way things are. ”
Showrunner Carlton Cruse added to the Wall Street Journal that the second book will likely be seasons 2 and 3 while the third book will be seasons and 5, if all goes as planned.
“I don’t think there’s a scenario in which the show goes more than five seasons. I feel like one of the things that’s happening in television is that audiences are really embracing close-ended storytelling,” he said.
“The audience really needs to know what their investment is. I think, in this type of story, where there’s a big narrative question — Is this strain of vampires going to take out the world? Do humans have a chance to win the world back? — demands an answer on some sort of fixed timeline. That’s our goal, to do that. I think the material that we have will lend itself to a five-season arc.”
He also noted that he and the others involved with the show are significantly expanding and developing the story.
“Although it follows the arc of the books, there’s a lot we added and embellished. If you read the first book, there’s a substantial amount that’s different. We really bolstered the progression of the strain. Eichorst is a combination of two characters in the book, we made him more substantial. Obviously, the character of Dutch doesn’t exist in the books,” he said.
“And I just think there are a lot of scenes and details that make it a lot more fuller experience, by necessity because, basically, the book is 400 pages, and the first 150 pages is the pilot. The other 250 pages had to service the roadmap for 12 hours of television, and that’s not a lot of pages for that much television. So, a tremendous amount was created. A lot of the backstory was fleshed out. There was a tremendous amount of work lending to adapting it, and while it does follow the general arc, it’s very much its own experience.”
As for a premiere date, it’s pegged thus far as “summer 2015.” Season 1 premiered on July 13, so season 2 will likely premiere around the same time, possibly July 5, July 12, or July 19 next year.
