Homicide in a Small City arrived on Fox early within the fall 2024 TV schedule, with the homicide thriller sequence starring Rossif Sutherland as Police Chief Karl Alberg and Smallville‘s Kristin Kreuk as native librarian Cassandra Lee. Important to the sequence was the refreshing method to romance between Alberg and Cassandra, and the primary season ended with an exciting two-parter. It nonetheless did not reply a query that had bugged me all season, although: how can a homicide thriller present hold having two leads when one of many leads usually has nothing to do with homicide or mysteries?
Effectively, after I was lucky sufficient to talk with govt producer Jeff Wachtel about Homicide in a Small City Season 2 (hopefully as a part of the 2025 TV schedule), I requested: is troublesome to seek out methods to incorporate Cassandra – performed splendidly by Kristin Kreuk – in tales when the crime is a lot extra central to the story than her work within the library and neighborhood? Wachtel answered with a proof that makes a lot sense, saying:
The reply is sure, it’s. I’ve finished exhibits the place the partner was not as built-in, and I used to joke that they might be ‘chopping greens scenes’ the place whoever the lead was would name house, and he is normally a man, and there is the spouse chopping greens and cooking, holding the cellphone within the criminal of her neck. So she’s not the A-story, and she will’t be an excessive amount of into the A-story or else it begins to really feel too handy. The way in which we’re answering that within the second season, with out going deep into spoiler alert territory, is she did simply run for native workplace.
Cassandra wasn’t fairly sidelined in a method that she would simply be chopping greens every time Alberg gave her a name, however the EP’s response made me really feel an entire lot extra validated about questioning all season how a present with two leads might focus a lot on simply one in every of their tales. It could be awfully contrived if the crime every week someway concerned the library, and fairly unfair to Cassandra if she simply bought kidnapped on a weekly foundation to deliver her into the A-story!
And it will be a disgrace if Kristin Kreuk needed to indefinitely come throughout as a second lead fairly than a co-lead, particularly after what Rossif Sutherland mentioned about her being solid. Fortuitously, the Homicide in a Small City staff used the Season 1 finale to arrange how Cassandra can get extra focus together with her personal tales in a second season. (You possibly can stream all of Season 1 with a Hulu subscription.) Whereas he did not dig too deeply into spoilers for what comes subsequent, Wachtel elaborated on plans for Kristin Kreuk’s character sooner or later:
Let’s hope she will get elected, after which she’s going to have her personal tales, a few of which can effectively run counter to Karl’s agenda, as a result of she would not actually strike me as a regulation and order kind. We’ll see these two very highly effective, clever, opinionated individuals [and] I believe we’ll have a number of enjoyable with them. Not simply romantic discourse, however social political discourse as effectively, as they’ve two completely different approaches to the neighborhood and crime, and so on. I believe that is the natural method that we’ll get to construct her into massive tales within the second season.
The Season 1 finale did finish with Cassandra deciding that she might reside with Alberg’s work as a cop, which actually is an indication of how a lot she cares for him after her harrowing expertise with the kidnapper! The pair shared a giant kiss earlier than the ultimate credit rolled, ending the primary season on a excessive word whereas nonetheless planting seeds for the longer term.
For Karl, his second daughter might be coming to Gibsons and giving him a full home. Plus, serial killer Tommy Cummins was nonetheless alive, and he now has motive to carry a grudge towards Alberg and his household. Cassandra’s Season 2 arc feels extra outlined, as she instructed Alberg her plan to run for city council and made it clear sufficient that loving him doesn’t suggest blindly supporting the police division. Plus, there’s the continuing thriller of what occurred in Sacramento.
All in all, I am hoping greater than ever after Jeff Wachtel answered my massive query about Kristin Kreuk as Cassandra that Homicide in a Small City scores a second season sooner fairly than later. The chief producer instructed CinemaBlend that “Fox gave us some cash for scripts” and so they have the “first 4 episodes damaged with full tales,” in order that they’ve already made progress earlier than getting the official phrase.
For now, you possibly can at all times revisit the complete first season streaming with a Hulu subscription. I am tempted to do exactly that this winter and watch Cassandra’s tales safe within the information that there are greater plans for her in Season 2.