Last year, when The Tick season 2 was filming in New York City, I was able to visit the set and watched a very cool scene featuring a number of superheroes in a tense situation. Unfortunately, the scene is from the season 2 finale, so while I’d love to say exactly what was happening, it’s a huge spoiler. Just know the world of The Tick has been expanded with new locations and characters in the second season – including a number of new heroes that may or may not be what they seem….

Shortly after watching the scene get filmed, I managed to get some time with The Tick stars Peter Serafinowicz and Griffin Newman. During the interview, they talked about the Season 1 finale, what fans can expect in Season 2, The Tick’s new costume, how much the series will focus on The Tick’s backstory, Arthur embracing being a superhero, some of the new characters introduced in season 2, Dangerboat and Arthur’s blossoming relationship, how the storyline changed during the season, what new characters join the show, and so much more.

Check out what he had to say below. The Tick also stars Valorie Curry, Brendan Hines, Scott Speiser and Yara Martinez.

The Tick season 2 drops on Amazon Prime Video April 5th.

Collider: What can you guys tease about season 2?

PETER SERAFINOWICZ: Well, I think season 1 was all about Arthur being on this hero’s journey. Season 2 starts with Arthur being a hero right from the start. Now it’s down to business, the business of superhero-ing in the city, and doing all of those things that superheroes do. At the start, I guess it’s Tick mentoring him. Okay, you’ve got the job. Now, let’s do the job.

GRIFFIN NEWMAN: It’s very easy to follow the path of a hero’s journey, which is why the first season was so much of our deconstruction of those tropes. Now, it’s like the struggle of how to make that into a career. It’s no longer - here’s the personal vendetta, here’s my arch nemesis, here’s the trauma I have to meet of the man who killed my father. We need to figure out how we can still do this everyday for the rest of your life, and do this by the books - which is the other big thing that season 2 is us getting wrapped up into this bureaucracy of the superhero world. The Tick, who’s a guy who sees things in such black and white terms, it’s good and it’s evil. There’s a lot of grey area that we need to live in now. Arthur comes from a more bureaucratic world as a former accountant. It’s like Tick teaching Arthur how to be a superhero and Arthur teaching Tick how to reasonable asses your surroundings, and go through due process, and not just punch people.

SERAFINOWICZ: You could almost say that Arthur's superpower is dealing with paperwork, which is something that Tick absolutely detests. It’s like his kryptonite. Something that I share with the Tick, something that Griffin shares with the Tick, and something that Ben Edlund shares.

NEWMAN: It is no joke the biggest acting challenge I’ve had on this series is pretending that I am good at and enjoy doing paperwork. There’s nothing that triggers my anxiety more than even prop paperwork. It drives me insane and I have all these scenes where I have to act like I’m super proficient at it and enjoy it. The running joke in all the versions of The Tick is that Tick is nigh invulnerable, but you never really see where that nigh comes in. We finally identify the nigh which is paperwork. That is the one thing that can almost kill The Tick, is his frustration with paperwork.

One of the things about a first season is that you’re figuring out the infrastructure of making the show. How many VFX can you do in an episode. How much can you do in the seven day shoot or whatever the schedule is. How has it changed in making season two, now that everyone knows how to make a show like The Tick?

SERAFINOWICZ: I don’t know, really. It’s still a challenge. We do know a lot more.

NEWMAN: It’s not like our show is Cheers, where you can get past the growing pains of the production and you go, great, so we know what this bar is like. We know what the angles are like. Everyone has their characters figured out. We go into season two with a lot of new characters, a lot of knew locations and all these knew struggles. There’s certain things we’ve figured out in terms of work flow. It’s also constantly, new things being thrown at us. The show doesn’t have a status quo that we can click into as a comfort zone.

Season one ended with a tease of Midnight (the dog), saying “They’re going to be watching you now.” How much does that last bit of season one play into the arc of season two?

NEWMAN: Huge. I think that’s the backbone of the whole thing. Us being on this radar is a blessing and a curse.

SERAFINOWICZ: It’s a “blurse.”

NEWMAN: It’s a “clessing.”

I hate asking about the costume, but I did notice the costume is different for The Tick. Is that a result of you saying, “Guys, this needs to change”?

SERAFINOWICZ: (laughs). Yeah, I guess it was pretty much mostly down to me. I’m the one that’s wearing it. Nobody else has to wear it, and it has unique challenges. A big thing about it is, the costume this year has greatly improved. It’s much more mobile.

Wait, you can turn your head?

SERAFINOWICZ: Yeah. I can turn my head. (laughs). Because I have these antennas that are operated by our puppeteer, Lars, it presents this unique challenge that there has to be motors and electronics. The batteries have to go somewhere and it has to transmit. What that amounts to is that, once I’m in this helmet that’s attached to this suit by wires and battery packs. Once I’m in it, I’m pretty much locked, glued, zipped, velcroed and stuck in this thing. I don’t know if there’s a way around it. Have any developments been made in computer graphics?

(laughs).

NEWMAN: I think they tapped out at last year. That’s the last one I saw. It’s a little rocky.

SERAFINOWICZ: It’s, you know, today. Have you been in? Have you filmed again?

NEWMAN: I was filming now, so.

SERAFINOWICZ: Oh, you’re kidding. Really?

I was watching, I saw the whole thing.

SERAFINOWICZ: Is it still hot.

NEWMAN: Yeah. It’s not cold in there. I feel like there are practical realities to this show that we’re trying to figure out and streamline. It’s not just about things like comfort. It’s like, you don’t want to hire Peter and then not give him the range to be able to perform that character fully. You joke about the head turn thing, but it is like a thing. Peter’s a very physical actor. You don’t want to limit the vocabulary of what he can do. You don’t want to limit the ability of how long he can be in the suit. All these things benefit the performance, not just the visuals of it. I also think, we made the shift - the costume from the pilot to season one, and then this other shift from the season one costume to the season two costume. There’s changes mandated by the practical concerns. We also very smartly, without overdoing it, written it into the DNA of the show. From the beginning, episode one of season two, we sort of call together the ever changing nature of the suit in a way that’s not just going, “Hey, pretend that didn’t happen.” We’re trying to make that part of the story thing as well.

One of the things about season one was The Tick trying to figure out who he was. I really enjoyed the robot bit. How much of season two is Tick still trying to figure out who he is?

SERAFINOWICZ: I think it’s still present. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say it’s not as much a focus as it was before. He’s kind of, he’s pretty content with not knowing where he came from. I don’t know why he got so wound up about it.

NEWMAN: That’s the thing last season that I thought was so smart was, it’s not as much that Tick is having a crisis that he doesn’t know where he came from. It’s more that he’s having a crisis that everyone is now making him think that’s something he should know. If no one had ever raised the question, it never would have been a concern. The fact that people keep on posing it to him, it’s like is this something I should be worried about? That lack of worry is almost more the worry.

SERAFINOWICZ: It’s like people ask him less frequently, so he’s not that bothered by it. He likes just living in the moment.

NEWMAN: It’s like when people keep on asking you, “are you feeling okay?” And you start to wonder, “Is something wrong with me? Do I look bad right now? I feel fine. Is there something in my teeth?”

You make an excellent point. I have to get an update on the relationship between Arthur and Dangerboat. It seems to me like that was a relationship that was worth exploring further.

NEWMAN: It is explored, and certainly not in a subtextual way. There is an episode that is a Dangerboat, Arthur ship centerpiece. “Ship” Shipping.

Is that one of those, you know certain episodes where there’s like a flashlight episode where someone is stuck. Is it like where Arthur’s stuck on the boat?

NEWMAN: There’s a bit of a bottle Dangerboat episode, where their relationship comes to a head. Ben Edlund has an abundance of ideas. He has a creative mind that never stops running, and never stop shooting off things. He doesn’t know which things are totally going to stick, and which things are funny little jokes for him. I think we were all surprised by how much people took to the Dangerboat thing. We all tried to play it as genuinely as possible. I don’t think any of us making the show knew that people would connect to it that much. Whenever I talk to people who have seen the show that is always their first question. The first question I always get is, what was it like working with Dangerboat? I go, “It’s a bunch of wood!” It’s a set! No one asks me, “What’s it like working with your apartment?”

SERAFINOWICZ: People ask me what it’s like working with you, and I say, “What do you mean? It’s a bunch of cells!” (laughs).

The relationship between you guys with Dot and with Overkill, that’s like the group dynamic. The four of you guys.

NEWMAN: I feel like it’s a little more - I don’t think this is spoiling anything - but I think one of the things that is cool about this season, is that last season every character related directly to the two of us. This season, I feel like the characters have grown into their own more where they’re able to have their own totally independent plotlines. It’s like to, some sadness, we don’t get to work with Valerie and Scott as much as we did last season, but it’s also because those two characters have grown into a point where there’s so much you can do just with them independent of us. Same with Ms. Lint and Joan and Walter, my parents on the show. I feel like it’s become a lot more of an ensemble.

SERAFINOWICZ: There are plenty of new characters as well. New, regular characters. All of whom are so, without exception, are so funny, and inventive, and really well cast as well. There are some great actors in this new season.

NEWMAN: I’ve never worked on a show where there isn't an asshole. There always is. There’s always the one person where you’re like, “Oh, god. He’s on set today.” We’ve added a lot of new characters to this season, and everytime someone new comes to set - A) Immense sense of relief in them being a mensch, and B) Just a genuine awe at their level of ability. Without fail this season we’ve had are really, really good people.

I think everyone probably looks at you two in the way that how the show will operate, the behavior.

SERAFINOWICZ: I hope so. I’d like to think that and that it’s not the opposite. People trying to behave well to give me a hint to improve my - (laughs).

How much did you know about the arc of the season, going in? How many scripts did you have? How much do you want to know the full arc vs script by script?

NEWMAN: That’s a complicated series of questions.

SERAFINOWICZ: It is.

I hit you with four at once.

NEWMAN: It’s been changing a lot. So, we both came into it with a sense of what it was going to be but it has shifted a number of times. It shifted before we started. It shifted once we started. It continues to shift. As things develop, certain things start playing in ways different than you expect. As the edits come together, the episodes, they also start to see which things to follow and this and that.

SERAFINOWICZ: Then there are practical considerations, where something you thought that would work or would be a bigger part of the whole thing suddenly is impossible because the location is not available. Things like that have happened. The scripts have changed. I think some of the smaller stories have changed, but I think the overall arc has remained pretty much what Ben -

NEWMAN: In terms of the major thrust. The little details change a lot. What Peter was talking about, a good example of that is last season we had the Dr. Karamazov character, the guy who invented my suit. We find out has been shrunk by his own shrink ray. That was this concept Ben always loved, of having this tiny scientist. We did the first episode with him and realized, one of the most difficult things to do is shoot dialogue scenes with people of two different sizes. I think everyone went well, Lord of the Rings did it so, and presumed it was doable. And so it was like, ah yes, those famously short and easy shoots. (laughs). In Lord of the Rings movies. I think the plan originally was, he was going to be tiny for the entire season. Very quickly when they realized we do not have the time to do this many scenes where you have to composite one actor into another space. Essentially if people are two different sizes like that, you have to shoot each scene three times, in order to get all the elements and then piece it together. It’s a very painstaking process. Out of that necessity came, his head getting larger, him having to wear the robot suit, all of these things that I think were really funny and fun in the season. That was certainly a turn that the show had to make in order to problem solve around the fact that we’re not going to able to shoot five more episodes where the guy is six feet shorter than the other guy.

The advantage of dropping all ten at once is that if you discover while filming episode nine, that you missed something in episode two, that would make episode nine that much better, you can go and do an insert or something. Has that happened?

SERAFINOWICZ: Yeah. Well, it’s not as easy as that really because once you’re at that stage, the production side of things is finished. By the time you’re editing episode nine, for example.

NEWMAN: There are a couple things they picked up, not so much scene reshoots, you know shots that sometimes tie things together. We do have the luxury of having a lot of characters that are voiced, characters like Dangerboat, where you can massage that dialogue if things suddenly play in a different way. It is a weird thing about TV as opposed to a movie, where you have one production. As the thing is forming, you have one crew around. Here, it’s like we’re switching directors every two weeks or so. We have assistant director teams that are alternating and prepping one episode while the next one is getting ready, and all of that. So, it is somewhat of a speeding train that keeps on moving. It’s not like we can’t go back to a station that we passed, but it does sort of involve getting off the train and getting on another train going backwards.

One of the things, you wrapped up The Terror storyline. He’s been keeping a lot of the superheroes in check. I guess what I’m saying is how does season two open up the world in terms of inserting even more superheroes and expanding the world of The Tick?

SERAFINOWICZ: There are more superheroes.

NEWMAN: Far more. I think it more comes out of the public response. To some degree maybe Tick and I, and Superian being able to conquer The Terror, reignites the public's acceptance of the idea of superheroes. It drew people out of the shadows. A thing I really like is a lot of the new heroes this season are old heroes who have kind of just been in retirement for a while. It’s not like new, young bucks showing up. It’s like a lot of character’s he admired and idolized as a child. Now it’s like 15 years and maybe they’re all a little bit over the hill, coming back, and going, “Well, if superheroes are a thing, I’m going to get back in the business.”

Ben mentioned there’s a “Dr. Strange”-esque character. What can you tease about working with him?

NEWMAN: I think he’s both of our new favorite characters.

SERAFINOWICZ: Sage. We don’t want to spoil it because it’s such an unusual and funny character.

NEWMAN: Cle Bennett plays him and he’s amazing. A thing I really like about him is he’s very much a 70’s comic book character. This isn’t riffing on the modern Cumberbatch Dr. Strange, this is riffing on peak - he sort of has the 70’s Nightwing disco collar, and he’s got that sort of vibe. He’s halfway between Dr. Strange and the original Powerman, and that sort of thing. I think we’re bringing in a lot of different hero archetypes. Not just in terms of a power sense and things like that, but in terms of the personalities. I think it’s coming from a very classic place, I think.

You share a lot of scenes together. Do you have a similar work style?

SERAFINOWICZ: We’re really lucky. We just gelled straight away. We barely even thought about it. It’s incredibly fortunate.

NEWMAN: That really is the word. It’s kind of like an arranged marriage. Especially when you’re stepping into playing characters that have a history and are so much about the dynamic between the two of them. We didn’t meet until the night before the first table read. Maybe if I work well with Peter they would have fired me. But at that point it was everyone going, let's hope A) it works well in terms of the final product. We were just hoping, let’s hope that we work well together. We are just similar in how we approach things.

Amazon and Netflix are notorious for not sharing numbers. Have they shared anything with you in terms of knowing -

NEWMAN: The most they will give you is, “Your show does well enough that you’re not getting canceled.” It’s like Roman Emperor, pass/fail. You don’t know the space in between of how well you’re doing or not, you just know either you live or you die, which is somewhat unnerving.

SERAFINOWICZ: I think we’ll know when my Prime membership is suddenly canceled mysteriously.

NEWMAN: That’s what they do. They don’t just cancel your show; they cancel your membership.

I was a big fan of your show and I wanted it to come back. Then I saw Amazon canceling a whole bunch of good shows, and I’m like, “Oh, this might not be coming back.” So, when did you guys find out you were getting a second season? Were you nervous at all, with what was going on?

SERAFINOWICZ: I was a little bit nervous, although I think it seemed to me, as Griffin said, the show seemed to form as best as you could measure it with the reviews and stuff on the side, it seemed to be perform really well. Before we were officially coming back for a second season, Amazon said, “It’s going to happen.” Of course, you’re always nervous.

NEWMAN: I have been on TV shows that have been un-renewed before, so I very much come from a workplace of nothing feels definite until it’s actually happening. Certainly, there’s a total regime overhaul at Amazon between when we finished our season and even when the things came out, the two halves of the season. When we were waiting for pickup, which is just unnerving because to some degree it’s like, foster kids or step-parents. You’re like, the new bosses here do they like our show? Do they still want us here? It felt like there was always forward momentum. Even when we weren’t officially picked up they were doing things like, developing new suits, or at least starting to explore creatively the direction for season two. But we didn’t get the 100% it’s happening for season two until maybe a week before it was officially announced. So, it was sort of a slow crawl to that official pickup, as we were moving in that direction going, “We’re close, we’re close.”

SERAFINOWICZ: Everybody was behaving as though it had been.

Until you get the call. Until the agent says, “The money cleared.”

NEWMAN: I had a very small part on the HBO show, Vinyl, and they kept us on hold for a long, long time. They changed the whole writers room, they brought in new showrunners, they kept on pushing back the date that they were maintaining their holds on the actors to start, and they just decided one day they were like, “Nevermind, we’re not doing it.” We had all gotten, renewal, it’s good to go, sign leases for new apartments. Then you’re like, “Oh, nevermind.” Thankfully, this had gotten picked up at that point, so I had a little less anxiety. (laughs). But, it’s like, you just never know with these things.

Completely. This season is 10 episodes instead of 12.

NEWMAN: Altogether, as you said. I want to proudly underline and bold the fact that everyone is going to get everything all at once this year.

I love the 8 and 10 episode seasons. I think it’s great. Were you excited when you found out it was 10 and that they were all going to drop at once? Did you prefer the 12 episodes?

SERAFINOWICZ: I am a fan. I still think this is what they should do, is put them out weekly, so they build up to 10. You get the best of both worlds. You start of with the first two episodes, then wait till next week for episode three. It just means, for a period of time, people are talking about the show because it slowly gathers a bit of momentum. I really think that’s a smart thing to do. It’s something that is disappearing in the world. When I was growing up in England, there were shows everybody would be talking about the next day at school, or my parents would be talking about with their friends. It’s something that doesn’t really happen anymore, except in my experience -

NEWMAN: The HBO shows.

SERAFINOWICZ: Game of Thrones.

NEWMAN: Westworld I feel like still has a bit of that.

SERAFINOWICZ: Yeah. Game of Thrones in particular, that’s the conversation around the world, when that show is on.

NEWMAN: I’m weirdly very traditional with that stuff as well. Where, even given the option, I almost never binge things. I sort of like time to digest things and sleep on them, and pace my episodes out. So I can think around my expectations around where it might be going, rather then figure out where its going 30 second after the last episode ends. But, it also is a changing landscape, and a lot of people want to watch everything now. I kind of like that at least they’re giving everyone that option. I think, the split season sort of frustrated people. I know when I was reading reviews of the first six episodes that treated it like it was a full season, and saying, “Oh, this arc doesn’t go anywhere.” That was sort of frustrating because you’re like, well it does, but it’s in the stuff you haven’t seen. This isn’t the end. I used to watch Lost with like 15 people, and get together in the hour before the show we would just go, “Okay, so what do we think is going to happen?” Then we’d sit there and watch and mute the commercials, and analyze it. The second it ended, we’d spend another hour going like, “So, what do we make of that?”

To build on what you were saying, you don’t know what people have seen and not seen. It makes it so that there’s no public conversation of a show that just drops all their episodes. You can’t talk about the show because you don’t know who’s seen it.

NEWMAN: That shift in what the cultural dialogue is with the show, I miss. I miss that conversation happening in the middle of the story rather than doing a post mortem on the season they watched in two hours. Within two hours of our last six episodes coming out for season one, I was getting tweets saying, “Hey, just finished. When is season two coming out?” It was like, here’s this thing we spent months doing, and now you just sat down, peeled it off and are already on to the next thing. It’s nice that they want to see a season two, we’ll take whatever kind of support we can get. I feel like, every 10 days I’ll hear someone tell me there’s some streaming show I need to watch.

I would say it’s every other day.

NEWMAN: My response to that always is, let me wait a month and see if this person is still talkin about that show. Very often someone has watched something in an afternoon says you have to watch this, and then 10 days later they forget it ever existed.

I’m going to end with what you said. I wish more shows allowed it to be a weekly thing, and then after the 10 weeks, binge it.

NEWMAN: Then you have that option. If you want to watch it in the afternoon, you can. People would watch 24 live, or they would wait for the season to come out on DVD, or they would watch it in the afternoon.