When asked to describe Season 2, which focuses on the life of Paolo Macchiarini, also known as “Miracle Man,” showrunner, executive producer, and writer Ashley Michel Hoban says it’s all about “good doctors standing up against bad.”

“I want people to come away this season with a sense of hope,” she told Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “There is a Dr. Death in every season of Dr. Death, but he is also outnumbered by the amount of people who are choosing to self-sacrifice [in order] to try to hold them accountable.”

Executive producer Patrick MacManus echoes the sentiment, noting that there is a sense of urgency to educate rather than just entertain when it comes to their approach to true crime.

“Ashley Michel and I have now worked on three seasons of true crime together, and I think the approach always kicks off in the same way, which is trying to educate yourself as much as you possibly can about the story and about the people who are involved with it,” said MacManus. “Then, the other part of it and I think that the reason that Season 2 of Dr. Death is, in my opinion, an elevation of Season 1, was that there’s a complexity in the moral dilemmas that all of the characters are facing in Season 2 that I don’t think is the same as Season 1.”

Those characters, the group of doctors who ultimately decide to stand up against Macchiarini and become the whistleblowers to ensure that justice is served, realize that the way he’s been moving is unethical.

“I think it’s a struggle for him,” said Luke Kirby of his character, Dr. Nathan Gamelli, who is one of the first people to voice concerns about Maccharini’s surgeries.

“He has instincts and intuitions about a man who’s very charming, who’s very accomplished and clearly has great acumen as a surgeon,” he continued. “It’s going to be a challenge for him to hold on to his argument, to defend it, and to try to get anybody to side with him. Maccharini holds a great deal of promise and hope and also is a great resource for huge funding to this institution… so he’s got a challenge ahead of him for sure.”

The feelings are the same for Dr. Ana Lasbrey (Ashley Madekwe) who is also on Maccharini’s team and has dreams of using this as a stepping stone to her career.

“You see Ana go through a real personal and professional journey,” Madekwe recalled. “She starts out incredibly ambitious and hardworking and sees in Dr. Macchiarini a chance to advance her own research and her own career and gets swept away in the success of it all. I think it’s very intoxicating for her.”

She continued, “Along the way, she realizes that all is not well. This groundbreaking medicine is not above board and people are really being hurt– and she has to wrestle with her own complicity in that. How much does she know? When did she know it? I think this is something she really struggles with, but eventually, she joins Dr. Gamelli and Dr. Svensson (Gustaf Hammarsten) in whistleblowing the whole thing.

Dr. Death season 2 is now available to stream on Peacock.