When Falling Skies season 4 starts this June on TNT, fans will see a new direction for the show.  Much of that is due to the influence of brand new showrunner David Eick (Battlestar Galactica), who took over this season for the departing Remi Aubuchon.  Characters will evolve, storylines will branch out and new love triangles will emerge, but the looming alien threat will remain as the central driving force in the show.

Stars Moon Bloodgood (Dr. Ann Glass) and Seychelle Gabriel (Lourdes Delgado) were at WonderCon today with some of their fellow cast members to give fans a sneak peek at the upcoming season.  I had a chance to speak with them before the panel about what’s coming for their characters and how the show’s changes will affect them.  Falling Skies also stars Noah Wylie, Will Patton, Sarah Carter, Mpho Koaho and Doug Jones.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

When we last saw human freedom fighter Tom Mason (Wylie) he’d just been reunited with his wife Ann (Bloodgood) and discovered that their unearthly daughter Alexis had grown to the size of a six-year-old in just two months.  Among her other abilities, Lexi was able to remove the alien eye worms infecting medical assistant Lourdes Delgado (Gabriel), freeing her from alien control.  This season, Alexis will be fully grown and played by new cast member Scarlett Byrne.

Question: Tell us about Scarlett Byrne, who plays the fully grown up Alexis.

MOON BLOODGOOD:  We love Scarlett. What did they tell you about her?

Not much.  She’s very mysterious.

BLOODGOOD:  Obviously, she’s my daughter.  You guys know that.

SEYCHELLE GABRIEL:  She’s part alien.

BLOODGOOD:  We can say that.  You’ve seen the hair color, right?

GABRIEL:  Raging beautiful.

BLOODGOOD:  Raging beautiful Brit.

Is she going to keep aging, like six years every two months?

GABRIEL:  Something like that, yeah.  I love when they’re like, “She’s six and now she’s gorgeous and 20.  And you’re her mom.  Thanks, Moon.”

Is she going to be a spirited daughter, or rebellious?  Or is she the quiet, introspective kind?

BLOODGOOD:  Well, what’s so great for me this year is that it’s a strange position for my character to be in because she’s my child, but she’s an adult now.  She’s not a young girl.  So, there are definitely moments when her and I go head to head.  And I think, also, Ann is someone who is just going to relentlessly defend her.  There’s also a lot that happens between her and Seychelle. I can tease that.

Are they friends, or enemies?

GABRIEL:  We’re friends, yeah.  You know, we get separated in the beginning of this season and I end up with her.  And I think Lourdes feels a sense of protecting her because she birthed her.  Both of them are coming into this new individuality together, on their own little journey.

Is Lourdes back in her right mind, at this point?

GABRIEL:  Mostly.  Lourdes has come back to her faith a lot, but in a new and evolved way that has been affected by all this.  So, it’s maybe not the same kind of spirituality that she turned to before, but one that suits the world she’s been affected by.  And she’s very, very adamant about that, this year.  It’s off-putting to some people.

BLOODGOOD:  She’s so different.  Lourdes is probably one of the most radically different characters, out of all of us.

GABRIEL:  Probably. This season, yeah.

How much fun is that to play?

GABRIEL:  It’s cool.  It’s always nice to come to something with a fresh perspective, especially when you know why it’s changed that way.  But it could have gone so many different ways, and to go that way it’s like, “Okay. All right. I see it.”

BLOODGOOD:  This year’s been great because we showed up and we have a new showrunner and everything that we’d known, as characters, just got completely rearranged.  And it was great because we get all separated.  I’m off with Mpho. [Seychelle is] with Scarlett.  We’re all separate.  And then, we all end up coming back together.  It was also interesting just to shoot it, as a cast, because I normally have all my stuff with Seychelle and Noah, and all my stuff now was with Mpho, and then it was with Scarlett.  So, it was great for everybody.  For me, it was the most different, in terms of seasons.  I think it’s our most exciting season, but maybe I just say that every year because I just feel that way because it’s so different.  But this feels like the most elaborate.

Do you guys get your own badass moments, this season?

BLOODGOOD:  In different ways.  I definitely do.  They’re like, “Here’s your stethoscope,” and they threw that.  And they’re like, “Here’s your rifle.”  That’s fun for me.  Ann comes into her own.  She stops being this middle of the road character.  Her anger takes the lead.  She’s usually so level-headed and this time she’s a woman who you don’t want to mess with because this is her baby.  Her daughter has been separated from her and she’s going to find her way back to her.  And that was so much more fun to play.

And how does Tom deal with that?

BLOODGOOD:  It was so great.  Noah and I get into some serious relationship fights this year, where you’re talking over each other and there’s all this resentment, and then you make up.  It was good.  It was probably the most dialogue I’ve had this year, as well.  And I got to be physical.  At some point, I also got to be involved in the process of how we’re going to take on a battle.  I’m now one of his, not colleagues, but I’m right there with them.  I’m no longer just his romantic partner.

GABRIEL: Oh, Lourdes has badass moments.  Lourdes is definitely making her voice heard this year, in terms of her faith.  She used to do that in a subdued, maybe a little more humble way.  But, she’s so enamored by what she’s believing right now.  And I think with some people, she comes up to their face and is like, “This is my way, and that’s the only way I’m going to serve.”

BLOODGOOD:  And we’re not close this year.

GABRIEL:  We’re not close, and it creates a rift with Lourdes and some other characters, which is interesting, too.  We bounce back from that, in its own way.

BLOODGOOD:  There’s a lot that happens with Lourdes, this year.  You can tell we’re dancing around it. We apologize, but we don’t know what we can say, so we don’t want to get in trouble.  We’re like children.  We don’t want to get in trouble with our parents.

Where does everyone start, at the beginning of the season?

BLOODGOOD:  In the beginning of the season, we’re about to approach Charleston and, all of a sudden, we get separated.  We get ambushed, and you that see Noah and Will are somewhere.  I am now on the road.  I am looking for my daughter.

GABRIEL:  We’re in a haven of an old Chinatown.  It’s a super cool set.

BLOODGOOD:  They are in this really ethereal world that you can’t tell what is real and what’s fantasy.  Maxim is in this . . .

GABRIEL:  . .  . a military reform school for children.

BLOODGOOD:  It’s very holocaust-like.

GABRIEL:  The Volm are on their own, but they’re still working with us.

BLOODGOOD:  And Drew is off on his own, as well.

GABRIEL:  He’s in the camp.

BLOODGOOD: And Maggie is with you guys.

Where’s Pope?

BLOODGOOD:  Pope is with Tom.  We didn’t shoot any of it together.  He’s with Tom, but Tom’s alone for a while.  And then, he and Drew get reunited.

So everybody just gets thrown to the four winds?

BLOODGOOD:  Yeah.  And then, they slowly, gradually brought us back together.

What’s it like meeting fans at conventions like WonderCon?

GABRIEL:  It’s really fun to just celebrate what we’ve done, after it’s all said and done, and to meet people who are actually super into it and have theories about things.  The amount of passion that people have for stories here is really cool.